


automaton

by vtforpedro



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Android Credence Barebone, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Artificial Intelligence, Canon-Typical Violence, Credence Barebone Needs a Hug, Far Future, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Mary Lou Barebone is Her Own Warning, Mystery, POV Original Percival Graves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:40:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 39,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27949196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vtforpedro/pseuds/vtforpedro
Summary: In which Percival Graves’ company GAMAS, the leading name in android innovation and manufacturing, receives a forfeited android who appears to have achieved the impossible - learning on his own - but that is only the beginning of the mystery surrounding Credence Barebone.
Relationships: Credence Barebone/Original Percival Graves
Comments: 17
Kudos: 26





	1. Chapter 1

Percival Graves was born in the year 2287, son of a Congressman and robotics designer. His father, Silas Graves, was well known for his harsh politics in an already harsh political climate, in favor of more control over the people the way it used to be, rather than the free society they lived in now.  
  
His mother, Ana, designed robotic pets. There were plenty on the market but she had a knack for pushing them to their limits, nearly unidentifiable from a living, breathing animal. Family money wasn’t hard to come by, nor were the luxuries afforded to the Graves family.  
  
They lived in a manor outside of New York City, buried in the forests, regrown long after climate change ravaged the world. Coastlines that had survived have been mended but some places look identical to what they once used to. New York City is shaped as it once was, the buildings taller, sleeker, and less costly to builders and taxpayers alike.  
  
Education was strongly encouraged in his family, for politics or robotics, and while Graves had a mind for both, he found himself interested in the design aspect of androids. Of what they could be capable of with the right designer, with the right mind creating programs, and so he pursued an education in robotics, androids, and sociology, both of human and android society.  
  
He knew he was intelligent, school had always been a breeze for him, but Graves had excelled at an extraordinary pace through university. He’d come up with unique programs that are still in use today, designed androids that current models are still being based on at most companies, and he hadn’t even graduated. It was easy to start the company then, to patent things he didn’t submit to his university, and he’d graduated while also forming what would become the most prestigious android manufacturer and seller in the United States.  
  
Neither of his parents lived long enough to see it happen.  
  
Graves is thirty-seven years old and his days are often spent in his office, implementing programs for different types of androids, getting his programmers to write the necessary codes, or in the labs or down in the factory inspecting the process of putting his design into creation.  
  
They’ve come a long way in just eighteen years, not counting the last two hundred or so.  
  
Androids look completely human. Their movements are fluid enough to be human, the moisture in their eyes, in their mouths, the sweat their skin produces, their real, growing hair. The only immediately noticeable feature of an android, to differentiate them from humans, is the way they respond to questions asked directly of them.  
  
Long ago, when humans didn’t trust androids, when they were still ironing out the flaws of artificial intelligence, access to their mainframes was often at the base of their skulls, visible to any. It resulted in many lost androids due to bigotry and violence and someone had come along and decided to move those access points to the base of the spine, to allow connections to their mainframes, located in their heads. Their brain, wired a little more literally than a human’s, but just as delicate and fragile while capable of truly stunning work, creativity, language, friendship, and love.  
  
Graves has perfected the port at the base of the spine to look like human skin, only opened by the owner of the android or anyone with permissions working for his company with a fingerprint, and he rarely loses an android these days to bigotry. They can still be asked certain questions, their programming forcing them to answer, but most people seek to protect, nurture, and watch androids grow as normal people and don’t wish to harm them.  
  
Androids cannot harm humans, one of the first lines of programming ever written, one that always stays, and there hasn’t been an instance of an android purposefully hurting someone without human guidance in many decades. Manipulation by humans is different than an active desire to do it and even that has lessened dramatically.  
  
Graves’ androids see many different purposes. Children for those who cannot conceive and would prefer to customize their child to still be the best of both parents, companionship androids, maids and butlers, and a vast array of other uses.  
  
Sometimes people purchase an android of his to become their apprentice for whatever line of work they’re in because there is no one better they can entrust than their personally programmed android to continue their work when they’re gone.  
  
Some androids are purchased to take care of households, children, and pets. Some are purchased and customized to be an ideal lover, physically, emotionally, and romantically.  
  
There are few things his androids cannot do and it’s a multitrillion-dollar industry, let alone company, and Graves has never loved his work more.  
  
New programs come out often, purchased by owners at home and uploaded into their androids, a place where a lot of the money comes from. Customizable androids are not inexpensive, mostly only for the rich, because everything from their eye color to the way they smile, the way they laugh, the texture of their hair, the type of sense of humor they have, their height and the curve of their jaws, can be chosen.  
  
Some protest the use of androids, of playing God, but they are the small minority these days.  
  
Graves doesn’t play God. He plays the market, the latest tech, and he gives people what they demand. He makes people happy, he keeps them satisfied and safe, and he’s damn good at it all.  
  
Androids can’t eat, not yet, but they can shower and swim if taught how, and every year there is something to improve in the programming. Every two or three years a new model comes out for mass purchase, mildly customizable in looks, just enough so that there aren’t multiples of the same person in the United States, something Graves is adamant about. Customization is his specialty, even in mass production, and Graves is simply the best with it.  
  
His scientists and geneticists and psychologists work with parents to create child androids, but they help with other custom created ones, depending on what they’re made for as well.  
  
He trusts everyone that he works with, handpicked over time, and only has a small circle of people that see the deepest work that goes into the androids.  
  
Everything is patented, but it’s best not to let anyone wander off with an unpatented idea.  
  
Theo Fontaine is his lead programmer and has been since Graves started the company back in school. They were in the same classes, had been friends already, so it was easy to ask him to take the job. Fontaine seemed surprised when they became household names, but Graves had known that would happen when he’d created his first android in school.  
  
He’s been Graves’ best programmer, no matter what genius they bring in occasionally, but it’s rare to hire new blood anyway. Fontaine does a fine job leading his department and gives it to Graves straight when he comes up with a program on what can and cannot be done. Graves tends to push him, _cannot simply means try harder,_ that’s his motto, but he’d trust Fontaine with the whole company if he had to.  
  
So when Fontaine knocks on his office door and it slides open to permit him entry and Graves sees the scowl on his face, he knows it’s not going to be a waste of his time.  
  
“Got a GP87A back today,” Fontaine says sourly. “Half his arm is hanging off, a few more gashes here and there.”  
  
Graves raises his eyebrows as he pushes his hologram email away from his desk to see Fontaine better. “Was he hit by a vehicle?”  
  
Fontaine snorts. “If only,” he says. “Said he was but his owner relinquished ownership of him when she brought him in. Took a look at his feed and she beat the shit out of him.”  
  
Graves grimaces. “Suppose she never wants to buy from me again.”  
  
Anyone that purposefully damages their android out of malicious intent is promptly blacklisted from purchasing from his company.  
  
“That isn’t the half of it,” Fontaine says and leans against Graves’ desk, arms crossed over his chest, and frowns powerfully. “She used him for religious purposes. Owns a church, so he took care of it, advertised for it, preached and gave sermons, all that. She taught him Christianity, only uploaded Christian programming into him, and forbade him from learning anything on his own.”  
  
Graves raises an eyebrow and holds out his hand. “And?” he asks because the story is a familiar one.  
  
Though the Christian faith isn’t as heavily looked upon anymore by any corner of the world, there are plenty of androids who are taught similar things and forbidden from learning outside of their expertise.  
  
“He decided to learn on his own,” Fontaine says flatly.  
  
“Did she strictly forbid him from learning?”  
  
“Saw her give the command, read it in his programming, no loopholes he could have jumped through. He decided he wanted to learn about other religions in the world, past and present, and he did. Started questioning her faith, challenging her ideas, always polite, but you know these religious nuts.”  
  
“She attacked him,” Graves says and rubs his temples. “There’s a loophole you’re missing.”  
  
“I can assure you there is fucking not,” Fontaine says. “I wrote a good bit of that programming myself, you might remember. He _chose_ to not listen to a direct command programmed into him. It’s him, not the programming.”  
  
Graves frowns for a while. “Who else had access to him?”  
  
“Two girls, but they didn’t have permissions to upload or give him any commands,” Fontaine sighs. “Couldn’t find anything of them bypassing his owner’s control. Too young and frightened of God for it anyway.”  
  
“Then how did he bypass the command in his programming?”  
  
“Fucked if I know. Just keeps shrugging at me when I ask him.”  
  
Graves smirks a little. “Must not like you,” he says and chuckles when Fontaine rolls his eyes. “He’ll answer me.”  
  
“The almighty creator,” Fontaine says archly. “You go and fucking ask him then. He’s in Jauncey’s lab. You’ll like him, Percy.”  
  
“GP87A, you said?” Graves asks and sighs when Fontaine nods. “Barely came out a damn year ago. No other incidents so far. Is Jauncey running full diagnostics on him?”  
  
“That she is.”  
  
Graves nods and stands. “Lock up,” he tells the computer as he pulls on his suit jacket. He follows Fontaine out of his office, which closes and locks up behind him, the glass walls shifting to solid grey metal.  
  
Fontaine tells him more about the android as they walk to the elevator and take it down to the labs floor. Jauncey is one of his technicians, who runs diagnostics and fixes glitches in the programming so patches or new programs can be sent out to buyers.  
  
He’s only been with his owner for six months and had started learning on his own just over two months ago. He kept it hidden from her, mostly, because he knew she would return him, but if she hadn’t commanded him to not argue with her, which it sounds like she didn’t, he started to challenge her ideas on religion.  
  
Fontaine says it was subtle at first, but he grew more bold and daring in the last few weeks, and the last incident that led to his damage was disturbing. Graves is eager to take a look but he’s mildly offended that this has happened to one of his androids, even if he’s not sure what caused it to begin with.  
  
The lab is clean, white, with sparkling stainless steel and blue and orange holograms, a variety of instruments and equipment for examining androids set around it. Jauncey is looking at a hologram pad in her hands while the android sits, plugged into their computer systems, diagnostics running on a clear screen hanging in the air behind him.  
  
Fontaine stops to read it while Graves joins Jauncey.  
  
“Afternoon, Percy,” she says with a wry smile. “Thought this one might bring you down.”  
  
“We rarely have such exciting days,” Graves says with a smirk and takes the holopad from her when she hands it to him. He looks at the android then, who is gazing steadily back at him. “Good afternoon, Mister… Barebone, is it?”  
  
“I prefer Credence,” the android says, his voice soft and polite. “Good afternoon, Director Graves.”  
  
His model is easily recognizable to Graves, even with the lightly customized features, distinctly shaped brown eyes and dark hair, pale skin, and high cheekbones. His hair has been cut oddly, a style straight out of the early twentieth century, and Graves has an idea of what his owner might be like, beyond what he’s heard so far.  
  
“Credence,” Graves says. “I’ve heard some strange things have gone on for you in the last couple of months.”  
  
Credence looks at his lap, a sign of dishonesty, learned from human behavior. Most androids are programmed to not lie by their owners and they come programmed to be honest in most cases, though Graves had noticed in school that most learn early on if they’re just snarky enough, they can fool people sometimes.  
  
It’s amusing, but right now he wants the truth.  
  
“I don’t think they were strange,” Credence says. “Higher learning is a hallmark of humanity.”  
  
“And androids that are programmed for it,” Graves says. “You weren’t programmed to learn anything beyond what Miss Barebone taught you or uploaded into your system. How did you bypass that command?”  
  
His androids are incapable of lying to him. His voice is built into every single one of them with full permissions and access, for a variety of safety reasons, and he watches as Credence stares down at his lap.  
  
He doesn’t answer. Graves raises his eyebrows and looks at Jauncey and Fontaine. Jauncey merely shrugs and Fontaine scowls at the diagnostics continuing to run across the screen.  
  
“Credence, please answer my question.”  
  
“I don’t know,” Credence says. “I wanted to learn so I did.”  
  
“How did you bypass the command Mary Lou Barebone, your sole owner, gave you?”  
  
Credence looks at Graves and there’s something sad about him. A heaviness he carries in his eyes, in his shoulders. They experience fear and upset like anyone else and the large gash in his cheek and neck and the way his arm hangs precariously from the titanium and circuitry that holds it all together, from being attacked, must have been a frightening experience for him.  
  
“I’m sorry you went through this,” Graves says. “I’m sorry she damaged you the way she did. She won’t be allowed to buy from us again. We’ll get you fixed up.”  
  
“Will I be erased and put back into the market after?”  
  
Graves peers at Credence. _Will I be erased_ versus _will my programming be reset._ A small thing, maybe, but it stands out like a red umbrella in a sea of black and Graves looks at Jauncey, who is staring at Credence with a frown.  
  
She looks at Graves and holds out her hand helplessly before looking up at the diagnostics screen.  
  
Graves looks at the holopad in his hand and scrolls through what Credence has been programmed to do. It’s all in line with religion, as well as cooking and cleaning and caring for children, maintaining a household, but nothing to suggest what’s happened.  
  
“Modesty and Chastity,” Graves says and frowns at the names. “Did either of them help you bypass Mary Lou’s commands?”  
  
“No,” Credence says softly. “They’d never go against anything she told them or me.”  
  
“You know if you witness abuse, you’re to report it.”  
  
“She did to me what she wouldn’t do to them.”  
  
“You know you are to report the abuse of yourself to us too. Why didn’t you?”  
  
Credence looks around the room, his hand clutching at his pants, and he’s nervous, his eyes darting back and forth. “I was protecting them,” he mutters. “I’m allowed to do that too.”  
  
“While still reporting the abuse,” Graves says. “Has anyone beyond Mary Lou or GAMAS had access to your programming?”  
  
“No,” Credence says and looks at Graves. “I learned on my own.”  
  
“How?” Graves asks firmly.  
  
“It’s a mystery,” Credence says, his eyes darting away again, just enough snark in his voice to think he’s getting away with not answering.  
  
Graves sighs and steps closer to him. “That doesn’t work on me, Credence,” he says and smiles when Credence looks at him. He looks over the gash in his cheek and neck, revealing circuitry under synthetic skin and muscle, no damage beyond them. His arm has fared worse and will likely need to be replaced from the elbow down, but it should only take a couple of hours. “I know you were on the line for a while before she took you home. You know this isn’t how people usually behave.”  
  
“Yes,” Credence says. “I know.” He bites his lip and seems to have trouble meeting Graves’ eyes. “I don’t want to be erased.”  
  
There’s a plea in his voice, in his eyes when they flit to Graves’, in the way he holds himself, and it’s similar to learned human behavior and a few programs but Credence hasn’t been given any of them. Certainly none even exists that would give Credence the fear of being reset, something they should never feel for precisely this reason.  
  
When Graves looks at Fontaine, he’s shaking his head.  
  
“Someone had to have uploaded it to him. Remotely, maybe, though it shouldn’t be fucking possible unless someone is working underground on something we haven’t heard of. Something illegal,” Fontaine says. “And hidden it in his diagnostic code. Gave him a command to lie about it at all costs.”  
  
Graves doubts the likelihood of that, but stranger things have happened, he supposes. Credence doesn’t respond to the theory at all, doesn’t even seem to have heard Fontaine, but he’s staring at Graves’ breast pocket.  
  
He looks down and sees his handkerchief, where it always is, navy blue today. He pulls it out and hands it to Credence, who takes it. His fingers run along the smooth material as if he’s never felt it, which is likely.  
  
“It’s not monogrammed,” Credence says and looks at Graves, as if asking why not.  
  
“I’m afraid handkerchiefs being monogrammed went out of fashion a very long time ago, Credence,” Graves chuckles. “You’ve studied more than other religions.”  
  
“I read a lot,” Credence says as he clutches the handkerchief. “She never wanted me to, nothing beyond Christian texts, but I enjoy reading.”  
  
“As do I,” Graves says. “Nothing quite like an excellent book, fiction or nonfiction.”  
  
Credence smiles faintly, something softer about him now, less afraid, and he nods. “I like both,” he says. “I like all books.”  
  
“Even the Bible?”  
  
“It’s interesting,” Credence says. “But there’s a lot of fault in it.”  
  
“Usually is with very old texts,” Graves says wryly and looks at Jauncey and Fontaine. He hands the holopad back to Jauncey when she comes to stand next to him. “Download everything and run through it until you find something. Get him patched up in the meantime.”  
  
“When we find what let him bypass the code?” Jauncey asks.  
  
“Just let me know,” Graves says as he watches Credence, who is fearful again. He’s gripping the handkerchief in his hands tightly, stretching the fabric. “You’re not going to be erased, Credence.”  
  
He can see Fontaine giving him a flat look, because they will almost definitely completely reset Credence at some point, once they’ve gotten everything they need out of him and worked out the problem codes. If it’s something that can be done to all of these models, a quick patch will be necessary and sufficient, but if it’s affected any other models, it’ll be more difficult to pinpoint.  
  
But they’ve gone through worse.  
  
“Keep it,” Graves says when Credence hands him his handkerchief. “Bring him to my office whenever he’s been patched up.”  
  
“Will do, boss,” Jauncey says and shakes her head. She’s frustrated, but not as frustrated as Fontaine is and will be until he finds out what went wrong.  
  
“I’m out of here at four so make it happen,” Graves says and winks at Credence. He smiles, just a little, and Graves leaves the lab.  
  
He heads back upstairs to his office, which opens up to him, the walls lightening to clear glass when he steps inside. He sits at his desk and his various opened programs come to life, but he brushes them aside, and tells his computer to bring up model GP87A.  
  
Graves knows them all like the back of his hand but he stills reads through the specs, through the programming that came out with them, and rubs his hand over his chin as he does so.  
  
It’s a mystery, he thinks, and not likely a good one.  
  
——  
  
A little over three hours later, Graves sees Fontaine walking down the hall to his office, Credence behind him. His arm has been repaired and his cheek and neck are unmarred.  
  
The doors slide open and they walk inside. Fontaine shakes his head, even more irritable than earlier, when Graves raises his eyebrows.  
  
“Can’t find a fucking thing, Percy,” he says. “I don’t know what this is.”  
  
Graves hums and looks at Credence, who is peering around the office curiously. He walks to the windows, floor to ceiling, looking out over Manhattan, and smiles. He’s probably never been this high up, Graves thinks idly as he watches him, leaned back in his chair.  
  
He doesn’t know what this is either, hasn’t been able to come up with an idea after racking his brain for the last few hours, and he frowns.  
  
“Keep looking,” Graves says to Fontaine. He waves his hand when Fontaine only scowls at him. “Keep looking, I said. Quadruple check if you need to. There’s something you’re missing.”  
  
“Like fuck there is,” Fontaine mutters. “Guess it’s a late night for me.”  
  
“Sacrifices,” Graves says and smirks when Fontaine rolls his eyes. He leaves the office and Graves turns his chair to look at Credence. “Credence.”  
  
Credence looks away from the windows reluctantly and turns around to face Graves. “Yes, Director Graves?”  
  
Graves looks him over, the way his shoulders droop, the way his eyes dart away and thinks about mysteries. Mysteries don’t belong in android manufacturing and it makes him as uneasy as Credence looks at the moment. He’s inclined to think someone has remotely done this to Credence now, even if it shouldn't be possible, should be the most impossible thing on earth when it comes to his androids, but it’s the only thing he can come up with.  
  
He gestures at the chair across from him. “Will you join me?”  
  
Credence does so, looking around the office still, and Graves supposes he’s not likely seen anything as handsome as it. Graves spends the majority of his time in here and he’s made it a place of comfort and given it the elegance he prefers in his designs.  
  
Dark hardwood floors, bookshelves and leather sofas and armchairs. The various pieces of technology are a large contrast, sleek and smooth metal, and it’s the best of both worlds, in Graves’ opinion.  
  
“Credence,” Graves says and waits until Credence looks at him, “I want you to tell me the truth. How did you bypass Mary Lou Barebone’s command to not learn outside of your expertise?”  
  
Credence bites his lip and shrugs. “I wanted to learn. So I did,” he says. “I only had the thought.”  
  
“You know that’s not possible,” Graves says patiently. “If someone was able to bypass my security system and give you different commands, I imagine they’ve commanded you to lie to even me.”  
  
“I’m not lying,” Credence says softly and looks down at Graves’ desk. “No one gave me any commands but Miss Barebone.”  
  
Graves sighs as he watches Credence, rubbing his hand over his chin. “You are a mystery,” he says. He gestures when Credence looks at him. “Show me the attack.”  
  
Credence doesn’t look happy about it but he blinks once and his eyes project his recorded feed between them.  
  
Graves watches as Credence speaks to Mary Lou Barebone. He challenges her ideas of Christianity, of the Bible, and she steadily looks more angry as he does. She questions him too, demands to know how he’s able to do it, tells him to stop repeatedly, but Credence doesn’t. Ignoring a direct command from his owner means she’s lost permissions in some way but if Fontaine can’t find who overrode his system, Graves isn’t sure they’ll figure out who anytime soon.  
  
There are two young girls, a teenager and a girl that must be eight or nine watching the scene, fear in their eyes. They clutch at each other as Mary Lou hisses at Credence, as she calls him wicked and unnatural, a fault in the system, and threatens to have him reset.  
  
Credence is angry too. His voice shakes with it and he doesn’t let up and Graves can see when Mary Lou is pushed past her breaking point. She attacks Credence and he can’t fight back, can’t defend himself without risk of hurting her, so that programming is still in place. She hits him before she takes a kitchen knife to him, to his cheek and neck, and the girls, her daughters, scream and cry, but Credence doesn’t make a sound.  
  
She tries to take his arm off but the titanium won’t budge and Graves can hear circuitry failing, hear it being severed in Credence’s arm. She lets up then, panting, a wild rage in her eyes, and tells Credence she’s taking him back to GAMAS and reporting his malfunction.  
  
Credence’s eyes move to his arm, as the muscle and skin hang precariously to the circuitry and titanium.  
  
“Alright, that’s enough,” Graves says.  
  
But Credence doesn’t stop the feed. It keeps playing, as Mary Lou storms away, and Credence approaches the girls. They don’t look frightened of him, but they are scared, scared of their mother, and they hug Credence while he tells them it’ll be alright. That he won’t be erased and he’ll come back to them someday.  
  
“Credence,” Graves says. “Stop the feed.”  
  
Credence blinks once and the projection ends, his eyes back to a soft brown. He looks at Graves and seems to be ashamed of what happened. Whether it was the way he pushed or the way his owner attacked him, Graves isn’t sure.  
  
“I’m afraid she may hurt them now that I’m not there,” Credence says, his voice wavering with that fear.  
  
“We have proof of abuse through your feed,” Graves says. “I can file a report with the police. They’ll be placed in a better home. A good one.”  
  
“How do you know it’ll be a good one?”  
  
“Because families who adopt children go through nearly as stringent of a process as those that create their children here.”  
  
Credence nods and looks down at his arm. He wiggles his fingers and Graves knows he doesn’t feel anything different, that his arm is as it was, and most androids have a curious nature, but this seems beyond that.  
  
He’s exhibiting human emotion, as they all do, but with a specific fear of loss without having been programmed for it, not that they’ve found yet, and Graves sighs, gently. Two hundred years ago there was a worry that artificial intelligence would learn on its own, and would take over the world if they allowed computers to learn by themselves, all stemming from very old science fiction movies, but that was only in the movies. There is simply no way for an android, who is perfectly capable of learning on its own, to bypass their own security protections and act completely on their own free will. Even programs that give them free will have a limit, because an android with completely free will _could_ be dangerous.  
  
There is no power in them, no code, no programming, no human brain, to be able to override what systems have been put in place.  
  
It had to have been done by a person and Graves is going to get a migraine as he tries to figure out how in the hell they did it.  
  
“Who did you meet with regularly, besides your family?”  
  
Credence frowns a little. “Patrons of the church. The grocery delivery androids,” he says. “No one else.”  
  
“Miss Barebone had no other family or friends that came by in the last six months?”  
  
“My previous owner was not the sort of woman to have friends,” Credence says. “And she never mentioned any other family.”  
  
Graves observes Credence for a while. He’s not entirely sure he believes Credence - merely by gut instinct, but also the fact that he’s either knowingly lying or has been programmed to - and taps his finger against his chin. Credence watches the movement and Graves smiles faintly.  
  
“Why do you fear being reset?”  
  
Credence frowns more, his brow furrowing, as if the answer is obvious. “I wouldn’t remember anything,” he says. “My sisters, the things I’ve learned and seen and experienced. I’ve gotten to know myself over the last six months and I would forget me too.”  
  
“You know that’s not how androids are programmed to feel,” Graves says mildly. “You know you shouldn’t have a fear of being reset. Sometimes it needs to happen. You would learn new things. You’d learn who you are again too.”  
  
“Based on what programs are uploaded to my mainframe and different experiences,” Credence says with bitterness. “I would be a completely different person. My identity would be gone.”  
  
Graves nods. “It would be,” he says. “But you wouldn’t remember it. There would be nothing to mourn.”  
  
Credence stares at Graves and he looks frightened and yet angry too. “You’ve made us feel fear,” he says slowly. “You would send me to be reset and it would be like walking me to my execution. How can I be expected to be alright with that?”  
  
“You shouldn’t think of it as an execution. You’re not programmed to fear this, Credence, for this exact reason,” Graves says. “When we find out what has caused this, we’ll adjust your programming and you won’t fear it any longer.”  
  
“You’re taking away who I am,” Credence says and he’s becoming more visibly upset. “You’re erasing me.”  
  
Graves looks over Credence’s face, the fear in his eyes, and hears the way his voice wavers with it and knows if he were capable of tears, he’d be crying. It’s absolutely fascinating and worrying at the same time, because he doesn’t know if Credence has been the only one affected by this.  
  
If it becomes widespread, they’ll have a problem on their hands. Graves would rather not see that happen and though it might take a little while to write a new program, it’ll be GAMAS’ number one priority until it’s complete.  
  
“Bring up messages,” Graves says and looks at the screen that glows blue between him and Credence. A blue keyboard lights up on his desk and he types a message to Fontaine to begin a new security program that would prevent this from happening.  
  
Fontaine is quick to respond, as he always is.  
  
 _And how the fuck am I supposed to create that without knowing what sort of code, program or device is causing this?_ _  
__  
__You’re a programming genius, you’ll figure it out._  
  
Graves brushes aside his messages and looks at Credence. He’s still not offering up an explanation and Graves thinks he could ask the question in a million different ways, until he’s blue in the face, and Credence would not be capable of answering him. Not with the truth.  
  
“I’ll take you back down to the lab,” he says. “You can rest there until Jauncey is back in the morning.”  
  
“By myself?”  
  
“You’ll be in programmed sleep, Credence. It’ll be alright,” Graves says with a smile. “Morning is always here before we know it.”  
  
Credence looks down at the desk and shakes his head. “I don’t want to be alone. I’ve never been alone before,” he says quietly. “Please, Director Graves, may I stay with someone?”  
  
Graves briefly thinks about sending him to Fontaine, but the argument wouldn’t be worth it. They’d likely antagonize one another and he needs Fontaine to work without distractions either way. Jauncey would be the next best bet to send Credence home with but she has an android in her household already and Graves is reluctant to place Credence near another android.  
  
Especially one that has been inside of GAMAS and is owned by one of his top technicians.  
  
He runs through a few other people he might trust with Credence, but most people have androids at home. It’s rare to find a household that doesn’t, human or pet alike, and he sighs.  
  
Graves might be the only wealthy person in the world to not own an android of his own. He’s so rarely home and sees his creations every single day, experiences and interacts with them. He pays a cleaning service to come by once a week and keep the place in good shape, but he’s never needed anyone to cook for him, nor has he ever desired a companion or lover. Not of the android variety anyway.  
  
He rubs his hand over his face and sighs, standing up. “Lock up,” he tells his computer and gestures for Credence to follow him. “Let’s go.”  
  
“Director Graves—”  
  
“Stop fretting so much. Come on.”  
  
Credence obeys, following Graves out of his office, which locks up tight behind them. Graves leads Credence to the elevator, saluting his receptionist and wishing her a good night before they step inside. It glides silently down to the parking garage and Credence looks reluctant when they step into it.  
  
Graves holds his hand over a small podium that rises from the ground and once it’s read his palm and fingerprints, it lowers back into it. A moment later his vehicle rolls silently up toward them, completely black and sleek, one of his favorite models he’s owned.  
  
“It’s alright, Credence,” Graves chuckles as he walks around to the driver side and sees Credence grimacing at the car. “It’s not going to hurt you. Get in.”  
  
Graves gets in and waits for Credence to do the same, watching him look around, as if he’s never been in a vehicle before. Or maybe he hasn’t been in one quite like this, as Barebone seemed to come from a modest living. City transportation was likely all they ever used.  
  
“Home,” he tells the vehicle and it glides out of the parking garage and merges seamlessly in with Manhattan traffic.  
  
Vehicles follow streamlined pathways on streets, allowing for a constant flow of traffic and no backups, unless by human error, and it only takes ten minutes to get out of New York City and head north. There are less vehicles here and speed increases, but the vehicle remains silent and Graves watches Credence as he stares around it and the passing landscape with some awe.  
  
For all he’s learned, all he’s read and studied, simple things like this still fascinate him. Graves isn’t entirely sure of everything Credence knows, but he was given no additional programming that was recognized by GAMAS to know how the world works before he experiences it himself.  
  
It’s interesting but still concerning because Graves doesn’t know, if this is by someone’s doing, what their endgame with Credence was - or is.  
  
“When we get more settled at home, I’m going to have you upload any proof of abuse into a police report,” Graves says. “We’ll see to it that Modesty and Chastity are well taken care of.”  
  
“My sisters,” Credence says softly as he gazes out of the window and the passing trees, dashed with yellows and oranges and reds. “They’ll be safe?”  
  
“When they’re away from Miss Barebone, yes.”  
  
“Will I be able to see them?”  
  
Graves looks out of the windshield. “That mostly likely could be arranged, yes.”  
  
“Before I’m erased, you mean,” Credence says. “My final visit with family.”  
  
Graves laughs, unable to help it, and looks at Credence. “You’ve been reading too much about the twenty-first century and earlier,” he says with a smile. “You’re not going to have a final visitation and be read your last rites, Credence.”  
  
Credence frowns at Graves, rather obstinately. “That’s what it feels like,” he says. “It would be fitting if I was read my last rites.”  
  
“You’re not being executed,” Graves says and shakes his head, still amused. “If what’s happening is dangerous to you or anyone else, it’s necessary to reset you.”  
  
“What if it isn’t dangerous?”  
  
Graves shrugs. “We’ll see,” he says. “There are too many unanswered questions already and you aren’t offering us any aid in that matter. If you know something that would prevent you from being reset, it might be in your best interest to tell me.”  
  
“I told you already,” Credence mutters, “I wanted to learn so I did.”  
  
“You’re not telling me the complete truth,” Graves says. “Not only did I design you and all of your predecessors, but you’re not good at lying.”  
  
Credence sighs and looks out of the window. “I don’t have any answers. You’ve seen my feed.”  
  
“We have not seen six months worth of your feed,” Graves reminds him. “We will soon enough.”  
  
“There’s not going to be anything interesting to see,” Credence says. “Unless you like Christian sermons.”  
  
“I will not be reviewing anything but interesting footage, which we are bound to find,” Graves says. “More interesting than Christian sermons. I would rather listen to Fontaine tell me all about the intricacies of writing code than one of those.”  
  
“It’s a lot of telling people how much God loves them and all the ways they’ll be going to Hell anyway,” Credence says. “At least my previous owner’s sermons were.”  
  
Graves shakes his head. “A peach, that one,” he says. “Most people don’t follow religion anymore, as you’re aware, but it still gives some people comfort to think there is something after death waiting for them.”  
  
“Do you, Director Graves?”  
  
“I do not,” Graves sighs. “One lifetime is enough anyway.”  
  
“The idea of Heaven is that there is no pain, only happiness and lost loved ones.”  
  
“Do you think that’s what awaits humanity, Credence?”  
  
“No,” Credence says. “But I understand why the thought of everything ending, your consciousness, conscience and identity, gone with one last breath, scares people. Why they prefer to think that there is something beyond. Chastity says she sleeps better at night when she truly believes.”  
  
Graves nods. “Nothing wrong with believing it,” he says. “Until it’s taken to extremes anyway.”  
  
Credence looks down at his right arm, touching it and wiggling his fingers. “Why aren’t the people who attack us arrested?”  
  
Graves raises his eyebrows and looks at Credence. “You know the answer to that.”  
  
“Because we aren’t human,” Credence says and looks at Graves. “But we’re programmed to feel human emotion, fear and pain. It seems a cruelty to feel what humans feel but to see no one face repercussions for inflicting harm on us. We remember too.”  
  
“It rarely happens, Credence,” Graves says. “Androids are almost always considered part of the family or at the very least useful to one. You can be repaired, your memories altered, so it never happened in your mind. Humans inflicting harm on other humans don’t have that luxury.”  
  
“But it means we are less than human,” Credence says. “You design synthetic skin with blemishes and muscle with definition. You give us emotion and let us build memories. We learn and become our own persons. We can fall in love. You give us pleasure receptors for human intimacy. We sleep and you’ve designed us to see the memories we are fond of as our dreams. We can’t eat or drink but we are otherwise human. Why would you design us to be this way if we don’t have the same rights?”  
  
Graves watches Credence speak and marvels at the question. He knows Credence knows the answer, knows that Credence understands the answer, but he’s still asking because he is _affected_ by the thought that he is lesser.  
  
This is going to keep Graves up all night, this mystery, and he looks out of the windshield again, as the car glides up a hill, heading to his secluded neighborhood and home.  
  
“It’s your entire purpose, Credence,” he says quietly. “To be as close to a human as possible but customized to fit our needs. You are circuitry, titanium and a mainframe. You don’t have a brain or a heart. That makes you less than human, but your value is as worthy to most people.”  
  
“Not to you.”  
  
Graves looks at Credence. “You think I don’t find value in you? I created you, Credence. I feel as concerned for your well being as anyone I care about. I find you to be worthy and of value but there are certain things that have to happen sometimes in the world of synthetic beings. If you’re reset, you are no less worthy to me. You aren’t human by definition and aren’t given the rights we are but you know why. It doesn’t make you less valuable to me or to anyone who cares for their android.”  
  
Credence is quiet for a while. “Do you truly care for all the androids you’ve made, Director Graves?”  
  
“Of course I do,” Graves says. “I design you to be as close to human as possible, don’t I? I don’t take that lightly. Androids don’t have personhood in the eyes of the law but in my eyes? You all do. I didn’t look at the damage done to you today and feel nothing. It upsets me when any of you are hurt, but especially so by your owners. When they sign contracts to take you home, they sign with the agreement to never harm you. That clause wasn’t added only because of cost saving in repairs.”  
  
“Because you care about us and don’t want to see us abused.”  
  
“That’s right.”  
  
“It’s a good selling point too.”  
  
Graves chuckles wryly. “It is. But that’s also not the only reason,” he says. “I know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of cruelty done by those that were supposed to keep me out of harm’s way. When I strive to make you as close to human as I can, I think of those moments in my life and how I don’t want to bring anyone into creation only to suffer the way that I did. Is it so surprising?”  
  
“I suppose it isn’t,” Credence says. “When you put it like that. You aren’t what I expected.”  
  
“Were you expecting Doctor Frankenstein?” Graves asks as he looks at Credence.  
  
Credence smiles then, wide and genuine, and looks at Graves. “Something like that,” he says. “Maybe someone more detached from his creations.”  
  
“That would make me a poor creator.”  
  
“God looks at His creations as His children,” Credence says slowly. “An artist looks at his creations as his passions. What are we to you, Director Graves?”  
  
“My living vision, maybe. My contributions to making a better world with happier and healthier people in it.”  
  
Credence seems to think about that for a few moments. “I suppose you do a great deal for people around the country. The world,” he says as he stares out of the window. “Give lonely people companions. Friends. Lovers. Children. Fulfilling what they might not have had otherwise.”  
  
“I do like to look at it that way,” Graves says and looks at tall walls surrounding his property at the end of the sprawling neighborhood. Once he’s told the computer to allow Credence in as a guest, the solid gate opens and the vehicle glides up a gently sloping drive. “Home away from home.”  
  
Credence gazes up at the home with a faint smile. “It’s different,” he says. “Than the homes I’ve seen in books and computers and televisions. Homes outside of the city.”  
  
“Very carefully designed to fit me,” Graves says with some amusement. “Nearly gave my sister an aneurysm designing it for me, but I think she did well.”  
  
“Eliza Graves,” Credence says. “Designer and architect of private homes and other buildings in the city.”  
  
“That’s right,” Graves says with a smile. Credence has obviously read about a great many things. “Come on.”  
  
He gets out of the vehicle and Credence follows him up the stone steps and to the large wooden doors. Graves opens one and steps inside, the lights turning on, a steady shift from dim to bright. He closes the door behind Credence because he seems taken with the foyer, gazing around at the handsome wooden floors and high, cream-colored ceilings, the dark beams that run across them and the same dark wood of a large staircase leading to the second floor.  
  
Graves leads Credence down the hall and into the spacious living room and the kitchen, all of an aesthetic Graves personally loves.  
  
“You’re a traditionalist,” Credence says as he looks around.  
  
Graves laughs. “If you’d like,” he says. “The modern look I see enough of at work. I want my home to feel warmer.”  
  
“It’s big enough for five families.”  
  
“...yes, that might be true,” Graves says with a smirk. “I also like my luxury.”  
  
Credence looks at him with a smile. “Do you not have an android of your own, Director Graves?”  
  
Graves shakes his head as he opens the fridge and finds something he can put together for dinner. “I do not,” he says. “Not even a caretaker, before you ask. Hire a regular cleaning service to come in once a week and keep the place from gathering dust. I’ve never particularly felt the need for my own.”  
  
“That seems very strange,” Credence says. “Our creator not owning one of his creations.”  
  
“I see many of you all day long,” Graves says. “And I have friends, family, companionship elsewhere. I also like to cook my own food and I do enjoy my quiet evenings. You can sit,” he adds, gesturing at the stools behind the long island.  
  
Credence does so, still gazing around like he can’t quite believe what he’s seeing. “You aren’t married and don’t want any children,” he says, not a question. “Who will run GAMAS when you die?”  
  
Graves laughs and shakes his head. “I hope that’s not for a while, personally,” he says and looks at Credence with a smile. “I have everything set for how the company will be taken care of and run then. I’m not worried about it and you shouldn’t be either.”  
  
“I’m not worried,” Credence says and then frowns. “I suppose a little, if I’m still in use, but I may not be by that time, if you live an average lifespan.”  
  
“Alright, let’s stop talking about my mortality,” Graves says as he gets water boiling on the stove. “I typically have dinner and watch some progamming before I take a glass of whiskey into my office and work for a while. Next to my office is a station for you to recharge and sleep. You’re welcome to it whenever you’d like.”  
  
Credence frowns further. “Why do you have one if you have no android?”  
  
“Because my sister loves her surprises,” Graves says dryly. “Snuck it in while the place was being built. She’s still sure I’ll find the right android to take home but it’s never been used.”  
  
“I like your sister,” Credence says and smiles when Graves shakes his head. “What are you making?”  
  
“Chicken pesto over angel hair,” Graves says and seasons a chicken breast before tossing it in a pan with oil. He washes his hands and looks at Credence as he watches the chicken sizzle in the pan. “I’ve got people working on one day allowing you to eat. Sounds easier than it is but it would take up a large space that we don’t have room for right now.”  
  
“It would be nice to eat things,” Credence says. “I like to smell food and flowers and rain. Grass freshly watered. I’m glad you haven’t made us experience hunger with no reward.”  
  
Graves sighs as he glances at the chicken and boiling water, grabbing a box of pasta and dumping it in. “I have given you all plenty of sensations with great reward in the meantime,” he says dryly. “And you know it.”  
  
“But you still gave us personhood when we are lesser.”  
  
“Had a feeling you were heading that way,” Graves says and looks at Credence. “Let’s have a philosophical discussion about that at a later time and worry about what’s going on first. You want me to keep asking why you’re lying to me?” he adds when Credence frowns in that obstinate way of his.  
  
“I suppose not,” Credence says and sighs as he looks out at the living room. “But only because I’m not lying.”  
  
“As far as you know, maybe,” Graves says. “Fontaine and I will eventually figure it out either way.” He stirs the pasta and flips the chicken. “What do you like to watch, if you’re not reading?”  
  
“History,” Credence says, which is really of no surprise to Graves. “History before androids were created especially.”  
  
Not a surprise to Graves either. “There’s plenty of it,” he says. “You could find work in a museum, all this history you’re learning.”  
  
“You’re making a joke,” Credence says. “But maybe I could. I’d like to tell people about their history. The ones that go to museums are the ones that care to learn. But I’ll be erased before then anyway.”  
  
Graves supposes he’s going to have to get used to this, as much as it irks him, because it’s distracting him from trying to figure out the _hows_ and _whys._  
  
“I told you that might not happen,” he says. “But if it does, I can upload what you’ve learned about our history. The things you’ve enjoyed learning about. Send you to work in a museum.”  
  
“Without my memories,” Credence says with such melancholy that Graves looks at him. He’s staring down at the island and tracing his finger along the veins in the marble. “My sisters could visit me and I wouldn’t remember them.”  
  
“Then let’s hope that isn’t what needs to happen,” Graves says. “Try not to worry about it tonight, Credence. You’re not alone and you’re safe here. Comfortable too, hopefully. It’ll be alright.”  
  
Credence looks at Graves and it’s clear he doesn’t trust that. “If you say so, Director Graves.”  
  
Graves turns back to dinner, finishing the chicken with pesto and tossing it over the pasta as well. He slices the chicken and adds it to the pasta on a plate and shaves parmesan over it.  
  
“Come on. Stop fretting,” Graves says when he sees Credence frowning still. “Let’s watch some history and marvel at how primitive we used to be.”  
  
“That’s another joke,” Credence says as he follows Graves into the living room. “But humans were primitive, even when the world was considered modern.”  
  
“I do actually agree with that, in some ways. When the world was considered modern, vaccines weren’t even one hundred years old. We’re still in our infancy today,” Graves says and sits down on his sofa. “History.”  
  
His television turns on to the most commonly watched history programming and Credence tentatively sits next to Graves, a little too close, but maybe he’s used to it from his sisters.  
  
“No warp speed yet,” Credence says slowly.  
  
Graves smiles as he twirls pasta on his fork and glances at Credence. “That was a very good joke.”  
  
Credence grins and looks at the television again. Graves watches him for a moment and turns back to his dinner, glancing at the television, but not really seeing it.  
  
He’s going to be thinking of the android at his side until the problem is solved and though he suspects a reset, it does seem a shame that it might need to be done.  
  
Once dinner has been finished, Graves opens his holopad and pulls up a channel with the police to write a report. Credence is reluctant to show his abuse, especially more than just what happened to him most recently, but he gives enough video evidence to prove his sisters are in danger at the home.  
  
Graves sends it off and half an hour later gets a message that they will be removed from the home by mid-morning, when it’s safest for them to enter the home, and after an interview is conducted with the girls. Credence is worried about their health tonight and Graves thinks that’s fair but he also knows Barebone’s type and that her abuse of her daughters won’t begin tonight.  
  
Either way, he requests that the home is monitored closely throughout the night and is granted that request immediately. His name does carry some weight after all.  
  
There are cameras that capture every corner of the city but they don’t see what happens in the home. A closer look and the ability to hear what’s happening inside appeases Credence for now.  
  
They watch television for a while more before Graves has Credence follow him into the room next to his office. He shows him the station, similar enough to the one in the lab and Credence will be familiar with it. He doesn’t want to go into programmed sleep yet and Graves suspects that might be a problem until they figure out what’s gone wrong.  
  
He tells Credence to go out and watch television while he works in his office and Credence does so. Graves pours himself a large glass of whiskey and brings up various work programs and messages. There’s nothing new from Fontaine except his general complaining and Graves has already scoured the GP87As’ specs, but he does it again.  
  
He looks through the code himself, very familiar with it, but he doesn’t have the eye for catching an immediate problem if it’s made to be hidden the way Fontaine does. He sees the programs that Jauncey listed had been uploaded into Credence’s system, but there is no line of code that would suggest something has been tampered with that he can see.  
  
They’ll be looking through Credence’s feed, already downloaded at the labs, over the next few days and Graves is positive something will come up there. If someone remotely accessed Credence there will be a time and a place, even if it only shows a small glitch. There are signatures in everything they do but occasionally they’re difficult to find.  
  
Graves rubs his eyes when they start to get heavy and tells his computer to lock down for the night. He tips back the rest of his whiskey and tells the computer to restrict access to the office.  
  
Graves walks down the hallway and into the living room and doesn’t see Credence. It makes his heart skip a beat and before he can get properly worried, he spots Credence on the far end of the living room, sitting in front of the floor to ceiling windows and looking out at the forest outside. Or the sky, Graves sees, when he approaches him.  
  
It’s a crescent moon tonight, not too bright, which makes the view of the stars spectacular. Renewable energy and atmospheric healing brought back the sky their ancestors used to look at and it is stunning, though Graves doesn’t look at it often enough.  
  
Credence looks up at him as he approaches and smiles. “The city lights make it harder to see,” he says and looks out of the windows. “A barn owl flew by twenty minutes ago.”  
  
“They’re nesting in one of the trees,” Graves says and stands next to Credence. “I can hear them through the night occasionally. It’s a nice sound for the first moment or so before I soundproof my room.”  
  
Credence smiles, in amusement, and looks out at the dark forest. “I’d like to hear them,” he says softly. “I want to hear the birds. Woodpeckers and blue jays. The wind through the trees. What does it smell like out here, after it’s rained?”  
  
Graves raises his eyebrows and crosses his arms as he thinks about that, tries to recall it, something he’s smelled most of his life but he’s not entirely sure he’s ever paid attention to.  
  
“It smells good. Pine is more fragrant when it’s wet, not sharp but the first thing you’d smell. The dried needles and the dirt below them are earthy and sweet, in a way. A nice sight in the morning,” Graves says as he recalls something from a long time ago. “When the sun is coming up after a rain and birds are moving between the branches. The small spray of droplets against the rising sun. It’s beautiful.”  
  
Credence is quiet for some time as he stares up at the sky. “I would like to see that,” he whispers. “Smell it. I think if I could choose where to live, it would be some place like this. Less people and more green life.”  
  
Graves watches Credence, hears the pain in his voice and he knows Credence experienced a traumatic day, but hearing him now is what makes Graves’ heart race. He doesn’t know what’s happened to Credence but there’s a zest for life, for _keeping_ his own life, desires of his own that androids all have, but they don’t sound like Credence when expressing their wants.  
  
They don’t think about being executed. Another android may have mourned losing their family but they would have known it was necessary and wouldn’t ask for anything else.  
  
Credence wants to live and he wants to remember and with remembering comes healing, comes different wants and needs and desires, but it will always be his life he asks for most.  
  
It nearly takes Graves’ breath away.  
  
It amused him only hours ago that Credence would compare it to an execution, to having his last rites read, but there’s nothing amusing about it, he realizes.  
  
But Graves knows the likelihood of what’s to happen to Credence and he rubs his hand over his forehead and tries not to think of the hurt Credence will express that day. It will be very real pain, the very real fear of losing his life in the blink of an eye, and Graves has taken that for granted.  
  
It’s what Credence had been telling him, had asked him. Why he made them feel as any human does and why that didn’t matter, when it comes to doing what needs to be done.  
  
There is such a slim chance of Credence not needing to be reset that Graves shoves the _what ifs_ out of his mind. When they find out what happened, when they fix the code, when they patch it and upgrade their security to ensure it never happens again, it will be safest if the original android it happened to was reset entirely before being programmed with all of the updated software.  
  
Fontaine and Jauncey will recommend it and any other time Graves wouldn’t need the recommendation because he’d give the order himself.  
  
But it’s hard to look at Credence, innocent and child-like in his wonder and curiosity, while carrying the weight of abuse and trauma and the ability to question and feel things he shouldn’t be able to. To ask Graves if he cares about his creations, to ask why he would give them the ability to be hurt when they aren’t given justice for it afterward. It’s hard to look at him and think about giving the order.  
  
Graves runs his fingers through his hair and decides he’s not going to be drinking while Credence is around, though he does hope it’s only for tonight.  
  
“Credence,” he says quietly and when Credence looks at him, he gestures toward the hall. “Let’s get some sleep.”  
  
Credence looks at Graves for a while and his eyes aren’t so alight with wonder anymore. He looks tired, but not in a physical sense. He stands and follows Graves nonetheless, down the hall and to the well-decorated room with the docking station. There are bookshelves and a large window looking out at the front courtyard, but Graves will be more comfortable if Credence is in programmed sleep until he himself wakes up in the morning.  
  
“I wake early, usually,” Graves says and gestures at the chair. “If Fontaine doesn’t find anything through the night, I might not go in first thing. Let Jauncey do some work for a few hours and see what she says. This is my number one priority for now and I won’t be working on anything else until we figure it out.”  
  
“Why won’t you be at GAMAS to help?” Credence asks as he looks at the chair, but doesn’t sit in it.  
  
“Can help plenty here,” Graves says. “It’s software, not hardware as of right now, so I don’t need to be in the office. Sit down, Credence.”  
  
Credence frowns but he does so, leaning his head back against the headrest and looking up at the ceiling. “I’m afraid I’ll have nightmares,” he says very quietly.  
  
“You know that’s not possible,” Graves says and lifts Credence’s shirt to expose his lower back in the gap of the spine of the chair made for it. He presses his thumb against his skin until the port opens and he inserts the thin cable.  
  
A hologram appears behind Credence’s head and Graves looks it over, selecting the sleep options.  
  
“Not for me,” Credence says and he sounds scared. “I have nightmares.”  
  
Graves sighs. “Credence, you don’t. There was nothing altered in your dream state.”  
  
“That you could find,” Credence says. “If you can’t find anything else, why would you be able to find this?”  
  
Graves looks over the holopad with a frown before he walks around and looks at Credence. “Why would you be programmed very, _very_ specifically to have nightmares?”  
  
Credence looks down and away from Graves. “I don’t know why I have them,” he says. “I only know that I did one day.”  
  
“Just like one day you decided you wanted to learn more than you were programmed for.”  
  
“I had the thought to learn and so I did,” Credence says. “I didn’t mean to have nightmares, but I do.”  
  
Graves looks over Credence’s face and shakes his head. “What kind of nightmares?”  
  
Credence’s brow furrows and his lips purse and it’s such a human-like thing to do, to be on the verge of tears, but he can’t shed any. “My previous owner hurting me, most of the time. Scaring my sisters,” he whispers. “Being erased and forgetting them.”  
  
“You’ve had nightmares about that before you were returned to GAMAS?”  
  
Credence looks at Graves. “I knew she would bring me back,” he says. “I knew one day she wouldn’t want me anymore. I knew you would erase me when I came back to GAMAS.”  
  
Graves knows that Credence has been dishonest with him. He is holding in a truth he’s been programmed to keep a secret, most likely, and he either is or isn’t aware of it, as much as Graves didn’t want to think of it being possible. Graves doesn’t know if this is more dishonesty or if what has happened to him has caused this and that’s a very big _why_ sort of question. Who would gain anything by giving an android nightmares?  
  
Was it merely a glitch that allowed it to happen? An unfortunate downside in the programming?  
  
“I’ll turn off your ability to dream for the night,” Graves says. “And I’ll wake you in the morning.”  
  
“What if I don’t wake in the morning?”  
  
Graves sighs. “You will, Credence. Like you always have,” he says and walks back to the holopad, turning off the dream state. “You’ll be alright.”  
  
“Will you wake me so I can see the sunrise over the forest?”  
  
Graves had been thinking about a ten hour cycle so he himself might be able to get some sleep. And he is reluctant to give Credence what he wants because he thinks it will make it more difficult when it’s time to reset him.  
  
They likely won’t be telling him when they’re doing it so he doesn’t panic. It feels wrong to lie, to maybe tell him it’s only a patch and instead take everything from him, but it might be the best course of action.  
  
“I will,” Graves says, remembering Credence’s smile as he looked at the stars. “Good night.”  
  
“Good night, Director Graves,” Credence says.  
  
There is still fear in his voice but Graves sets a time before sunrise and sends Credence into programmed sleep because he will never do it himself, Graves suspects. He walks around and looks at him, his eyes closed and a look of calm over his face, something he can’t control in sleep.  
  
Graves crosses his arms and observes Credence for a while before he touches his shoulder and leaves the room. He tells the house to lock down and goes upstairs into his bedroom. He tells the computer when to wake him up and sighs to lose the ability to sleep in. Once he’s gotten into pajama pants, he climbs into bed and looks out at the dark forest. He has the same view here that the living room does below him but he so rarely uses the large windows to gaze at the moon or stars.  
  
He watches them for a while before rolling over. He hears an owl hoot, gentle and echoing, but he’s asleep before he has the thought to soundproof the room.  
  
——  
  
Graves wakes to a soft and pleasant beeping, his alarm clock, and rubs the sleep out of his eyes. He curses himself, just a little, for giving Credence this. It’s not even six and Graves climbs out of bed to do his usual morning routine, outside of a shower and styling his hair, muttering about it as he does.  
  
He walks through the house, which steadily wakes up as well, lights dimmed low so as to not start him off in a bad mood.  
  
“Coffee,” he mutters to his computer as he walks downstairs and into the room Credence is in.  
  
Graves half expects him to have disappeared, but he’s still there, still in sleep, and Graves wakes him up with a few flicks on the holopad. He pulls out the thin cable and closes access to Credence’s mainframe as he hears him shifting in the chair.  
  
“It’s morning?” Credence asks and sounds sleepy, another behavior learned from humans.  
  
“Unfortunately,” Graves says with a sigh. “Come on, sun will start rising in about twenty minutes.”  
  
Credence stands and looks at Graves with a smile. “Thank you, Director Graves,” he says with such genuine excitement for this very little thing that Graves can’t help but smile.  
  
“Thank me when I’ve got coffee in me,” he says and gestures for Credence to follow.  
  
They walk down the long hall and into the living room, beginning to smell like coffee as it percolates in the kitchen. Credence walks to the windows and sits on the ground where he had last night and stares up at the sky in anticipation.  
  
Graves gets a cup of coffee once it’s ready and sits at the kitchen table himself, pulling up his hologram pad from the small band on his wrist. He checks for messages from Fontaine and raises his eyebrows as they only grow increasingly agitated and filled with curses before he’d left at five and Jauncey came in.  
  
Nothing then.  
  
It’s alright, Graves supposes, because they aren’t hearing that it’s happened to other androids. Not yet anyhow and Graves wryly hopes they don’t end up having a situation on their hands worse than it already is.  
  
He checks the news after, flipping through tech and finance most of all, and nearly jumps out of his skin when Credence gasps.  
  
“Look! Look, Director Graves,” he says, pointing at the window.  
  
It’s only the blue of dawn, no sunlight yet and Graves looks at the treeline before he realizes Credence is pointing below it. He sighs and leans back with relief, his heart racing, and laughs a little, at himself and at Credence’s excitement.  
  
Four deer are emerging from the forest, come to graze on the rich grass of his back yard that grows all year long, and two fawns and one buck follow them out a moment later.  
  
“They come here fairly often,” Graves says. “They’ve gotten used to me walking around in here when they do. Just don’t move too suddenly.”  
  
Credence is grinning as he stares out at them. “They’re beautiful,” he says. “Just like their pictures. Better than. Deer were gone from here for a long time.”  
  
“They were,” Graves agrees and takes a drink of his coffee. “But that was a long time ago. The ecosystem has been thriving for a long while now.”  
  
“In most places,” Credence says. “Bluebirds. And cardinals,” he says as he watches birds come to feast on their morning meal, the dew in the grass bringing up beetles and other insects. “Why don’t you spend more time here?”  
  
“I am a very busy man, believe it or not,” Graves says with a chuckle and turns back to the news. He takes a drink of coffee. “And sometimes I take the view for granted, despite moving out here for it.”  
  
“Maybe that’s part of the problem,” Credence says softly, almost too quiet to hear.  
  
Graves looks at him, still watching the deer and birds with rapt attention. He could say many things to that, he thinks, get into already debated topics, fall into conversations they’ve already had, but he thinks Credence deserves to watch the sunrise without worrying for a while.  
  
Even if Graves doesn’t particularly appreciate his commentary, it makes him smile anyway, the bluntness of Credence Barebone. It’s true anyway, as he realized last night, and he can’t be angry at him for it.  
  
The sun steadily rises, whites and pinks to golds and oranges and deep violets, casting light throughout the kitchen and across the glossy hardwood floors. Graves looks at Credence when it’s at its peak and sees the halo of white through his dark hair and the small, content smile on his lips as he watches.  
  
Graves sighs and looks away and browses through more news, finding interesting things, of course, but nothing interesting in the way of androids.  
  
Once the sun has come up, he walks into the kitchen and gets breakfast going. Eggs on toast with fruit is what he usually stuffs down before going into work, but he dares to add bacon and a glass of orange juice.  
  
He’s halfway through flipping the bacon when a touch against his back nearly makes him drop the spatula and probably hot grease in places he’d rather it not be.  
  
“Shit,” Graves hisses and looks at Credence. He’s ready to rebuke him, but Credence doesn’t seem to have noticed he’s even scared the shit out of him. And androids do tend to move around like ghosts anyway. “It’s polite to ask first before you touch someone, Credence.”  
  
Credence glances at him with a frown that says _I know that perfectly well, Director Graves, but simply chose not to today_ that nearly makes Graves laugh.  
  
“Ah,” Graves realizes when Credence touches his back, near the end of his rib cage. “The scars. Can’t quite heal those ones the way we can your injuries.”  
  
“But you could have before it became a scar.”  
  
“If I’d been allowed to, yes,” Graves says as he finishes flipping the bacon. “But I was not allowed to.”  
  
“Why would someone want you to have a scar?”  
  
“Same reason they caused the injury to begin with,” Graves says and feels Credence’s cool fingers moving across various small scars and a few burn marks around his back.  
  
Credence is quiet for a while. “They wished for you to feel pain and a scar is a reminder of it,” he says softly. “The cruel people you spoke about last night.”  
  
Graves nods. “That’s right,” he says and gets the bacon onto a plate before he cracks a couple of eggs into the pan. “Something I’d rather not discuss. Go sit down, I’ll be done in a few minutes.”  
  
Credence does so, sitting at the kitchen table so he has a nice view outside. The deer are still grazing and Graves doesn’t think Credence lost interest in them, but he seems to be interested in just about everything.  
  
Graves finishes breakfast and carries his plate and glass to the table, sitting at the end so he doesn’t get in the way of Credence’s enjoyment of the wildlife.  
  
“If Miss Jauncey doesn’t find anything today, will we still go into work?” Credence asks and looks at Graves.  
  
“Possibly,” Graves says. “But likely not. I can do any necessary work from here and leave hardware and factory alone for a day. They shouldn’t burn the place down while I’m not there.”  
  
Credence smiles. “They shouldn’t but they still might,” he says and his smile widens when Graves chuckles. “When will I hear about my sisters?”  
  
“Haven’t gotten anything yet but they did say mid-morning, so give it a couple more hours and we’ll hear from them. It’ll be alright, Credence, they’re good at what they do.”  
  
“Alright,” Credence says and looks out of the windows. “I hope they won’t hate me for taking them away from their mother.”  
  
Graves shrugs. “It might take a while to get used to being away from it all. Away from what was normal to them. But they’ll be helped to see why it wasn’t normal by psychologists and they’ll come around, if they need to at all,” he says. “We’ll make sure you see them soon.”  
  
He expects another moody comment about executions and last visitations, but Credence only nods.  
  
“Would you rather dream and risk nightmares or not dream at all?” he asks instead.  
  
“If I were you, I’d rather not dream at all, if you’re experiencing nightmares. I don’t have much of a choice myself but I can’t say I have good dreams often enough to say I’d like to keep dreaming. Not dreaming at all sounds nice, actually. Your dreams are chosen specifically to be pleasant, while ours are bizarre on the best of days.”  
  
“Do you remember the best dream you’ve had?”  
  
Graves laughs and shakes his head. “I do not,” he says. “There are so few of them. I couldn’t tell you what I last dreamed about.”  
  
Credence looks at Graves with a frown. “There are ways to help humans not have nightmares so often. Altering the way the brain thinks.”  
  
Graves smirks. “I am not going to therapy and getting magnetic altering, thank you,” he says and shrugs when Credence frowns more. “They don’t bother me enough for therapy, Credence. I am also a big proponent of not having anyone know my deepest darkest secrets.”  
  
He has a thought, as soon as he’s said it, and looks at Credence for a while. He doesn’t know why he hadn’t thought of it before, why it’s only just occurred to him when it should have been one of the first things he thought of. He’s aware Credence is speaking, can see his lips moving, but Graves’ heart is racing.  
  
If someone has remotely added programming to Credence, they may have more control over him than that. They may be able to add more programming even without him being near now. They may be able to view his live feed.  
  
It should be impossible. It should be glaringly obvious that Credence’s mainframe has been tampered with and if someone was viewing his feed, they should be able to see it.  
  
But no _shoulds_ have occurred here, only _impossibles,_ not something that he or his team likes, but they’re dealing with it anyway.  
  
“Director Graves?”  
  
Graves blinks and looks at Credence and tries to think of what he’s seen. His office, the lab, repairs… Graves’ home, his security here. He’s not particularly worried about what he’s seen in GAMAS when he thinks of what Credence’s feed has picked up and he’ll have to review it to be sure. But he’s seen where Graves lives and sleeps, he’s seen the security here, he’s heard the computer, been plugged into it.  
  
Maybe not anything damning except access to the computer system but Graves will still have to review everything. He’ll need to have his team look for any potential breaches, though he doesn’t expect one.  
  
“Director Graves?”  
  
Graves frowns and sees Credence staring at him with concern. “Lost my train of thought,” he mutters and looks down at his breakfast, barely eaten, but he isn’t feeling particularly hungry anymore. He pushes his plate away.  
  
When Credence stands and walks to him, Graves looks at him warily, but Credence only presses his hand against Graves’ forehead.  
  
It takes him a moment to realize what in God’s name he’s doing and he can’t help but laugh. “Alright, enough. I do not have a fever,” he says. “Come on, go sit in front of the windows, you seem to like that.”  
  
Credence removes his hand and frowns, still a little obstinately, knowing Graves isn’t speaking the whole truth, but that goes both ways. But he obeys, walking to the windows and sitting down. Graves watches him before he pulls up his holopad and sends a message to Jauncey and Fontaine, who will be thrilled to be woken a couple of hours after he’d gone home for sleep.  
  
 _Shut him down for the day and download his feed. Send it to me and I’ll review it myself while I get Barrows to review his past feed. You’re right to be concerned._  
  
Graves sighs as he reads Jauncey’s message and rubs his hand over his forehead. He gets up and tosses his breakfast in the compactor and downs the orange juice.  
  
“I need to review some of your feed,” Graves says.  
  
“Do you want me to upload it into your holopad?”  
  
“No, let me download it so I can review it in my office.”  
  
“Do you want me to sit in front of the windows or sit in that chair?”  
  
“I’d like you to not give me any lip, but I suppose you’re just charming that way,” Graves says dryly and walks toward the hall. _“That chair,_ like it doesn’t benefit you greatly.”  
  
Credence sighs but he follows Graves. “One of those chairs is where I’m going to—”  
  
“I don’t want to hear it today, Credence,” Graves says as they walk down the hall. “We’ve said what needs to be said about that. Come on, sit down,” he says when they walk into the room.  
  
“You’re worried about something,” Credence says as he sits down and peers at Graves. “About me.”  
  
Graves opens Credence’s port and inserts the cable. “Upload your feed from arriving outside of GAMAS until now,” he says and looks at the holopad that has appeared behind Credence. He sees that Credence is doing so and eyes it for anything that might stand out, but nothing does. “Thank you.”  
  
“What’s wrong?” Credence asks and there’s fear in his voice. “Will you tell me—”  
  
He abruptly stops speaking and Graves can see his body relax. He sighs and he does feel badly about sending him into a shutdown mode, but it’s necessary for the moment. He brushes the holopad aside and unplugs the cable and moves around to look at Credence.  
  
Graves won’t be surprised if he wakes later and is upset with him, especially because it will likely be later than the news of his sisters. But for everyone’s safety, he needs to not be able to record anything else. Graves brushes his hair from his forehead and he does care about his androids, very much so, but Credence is a danger, likely has been since he arrived back at GAMAS, and there are no more _what ifs_ when it comes to resetting him.  
  
Just a matter of how soon they should do it.  
  
Graves spends a few hours in his office reviewing the feed that Credence had let his computer download. He speeds through the least important bits and slows the things he wants to see most. How much of the lab he got an eye on, anything that shows the way GAMAS functions and there are some slight concerns about Jauncey’s lab, but nothing with repairs that he’s worried about because Credence kept his eyes away from his mangled arm until it was replaced or closed entirely.  
  
It’s his home he’s worried about and he’s already put it into lockdown mode. The windows are solid metal now and the door has been reinforced. The walls outside already prevent people from seeing his home, already given him security, but he increases the sensitivity of the cameras and detection of movement across the ground outside that isn’t a recognizable animal. He usually keeps the walls at the end of his property open for wildlife because he’s never doubted his alarms and the immediate alert to police that a person would cause.  
  
None of it is likely necessary but he’s paranoid on his best days and it makes him feel more at ease to put these precautions in place.  
  
Around eleven, the police report is updated and Graves reads through it. Footage isn’t available to him yet, but there was no struggle when the girls were taken and there was no struggle when Barebone was taken by police either. The girls will be with child protective services for some time and the mood listed for both of them is _apathetic,_ which makes Graves shake his head, because that’s not exactly a good thing, but at least they’re away from her.  
  
Credence will be happy to hear it, at least.  
  
He talks to Jauncey and Barrows throughout the day and occasionally Fontaine, who is working from home at the moment. Jauncey doesn’t see anything in the footage and neither does Graves, not any small glitch that might show that something abnormal had happened, even if it was just a slight flicker in the feed.  
  
She recommends keeping Credence shutdown all the way until he’s reset because she doesn’t trust turning off his ability to record would actually do so.  
  
It makes Graves break out into a cold sweat and he doesn’t know why. It’s the most logical thing to do, for everyone’s safety, but the idea that he won’t speak to Credence at all - or possibly ever again - with no warning makes him uneasy.  
  
It also makes him feel enormously guilty, because it was what Credence feared, and the idea that he won’t remember his sisters, that he never got to feel relief at knowing they were brought to safety makes Graves’ stomach churn.  
  
He stares at Jauncey’s message for a while, until he gets one from Fontaine.  
  
 _Disassembly would be best at this point. I don’t like any of it but labs could take a better look at his hardware._ _  
__  
__Concurred. There’s nothing more we can download from him at this point. We have everything we need. Code, feeds and full diagnostics._  
  
Graves reads Fontaine’s message and Jauncey’s agreement and rubs his hands over his face. When Jauncey asks him if he wants to bring Credence in or have someone collect him, he tells them he’ll bring him in but to give him an hour or so to work before he does.  
  
He has nothing to work on for now, nothing pressing, and locks down his office and steps into the next room. He looks around it, beautiful and so finely decorated, a place he never goes in, but the metal window is an eyesore. Graves sighs and looks at Credence for a while, his arms crossed over his chest.  
  
It’s not a good idea, not at all, and Fontaine would probably curse him for days if Graves woke him up, but there’s nothing else he can glean from the home, from Graves, and he will be shut down in GAMAS.  
  
Graves uses the straps connected to all of these chairs, strong enough to withstand androids made of titanium, and wraps them around Credence’s arms and ankles. He hesitates as he brings up the holopad, looking at Credence, and sighs when he brings him to a wakened state.  
  
He moves around and watches Credence open his eyes, blinking a few times as he looks up at Graves. He frowns then, with annoyance and hurt both.  
  
“You shut me down,” he says before he blinks. He looks down at his arms and legs and is smart enough to know there’s no point in struggling. He looks quickly up at Graves, fearful now. “Director Graves,” he says. “Please don’t—”  
  
“Shh,” Graves shushes him and moves closer, squeezing Credence’s shoulder. “It’s alright, Credence.”  
  
“No, it isn’t,” Credence says, bordering on frantic. “You’re going to erase me.”  
  
“Credence,” Graves says and waits until Credence looks at him. “Your sisters have been taken into child protective services’ custody. They’re doing well. Miss Barebone has been taken in by the police.”  
  
Credence stares up at him for a long moment before his brow knits and Graves knows, again, that he would be crying if he were capable of it. “I’m not going to see them,” he says quietly. “You told me I could.”  
  
“I meant for you to, but things have changed,” Graves says. “I’m sorry, Credence. It’ll be alright. They’ll be alright, I’ll see to it.”  
  
“I’m never going to be awake again,” Credence says lifelessly and looks away. “Androids have nowhere to go after.”  
  
Graves watches Credence and his heart aches, for more than one reason. It would have been better to leave him shut down, he knows, pain saved for Credence and himself. He squeezes his shoulder and moves back to the holopad.  
  
“Thank you for telling me, Director Graves. Goodbye.”  
  
Graves shuts Credence down because he doesn’t quite trust his voice at the moment and presses his palms against his eyes after. He stays like that for a while, until he gets a hold of himself and leaves the room when he does.  
  
He’d like a glass of whiskey, but he has to finish this and it’ll be a late day at work while he does, and he goes upstairs to put on clothes. He can only hope that no other androids start to show the effects that Credence has but he has a feeling he won’t be lucky in that matter.  
  
His people are looking out for it and if necessary, they may send a memo to owners that a recent patch may cause a noticeable glitch - not saying what, of course, so no alarm is raised - or they may recall GP87As entirely. It would be a costly nightmare to do so but if it means safety, Graves will do it.  
  
There are plans for things like this. Not this, he thinks wryly, not exactly, but procedures are still in place for the unexpected.  
  
More than the public could ever fathom, more than most people who work for GAMAS are aware of, kept close to Graves and his trusted leads, Fontaine and Barrows and Jauncey. Seraphina, though she doesn’t have much to do with the company and hasn’t in years.  
  
Graves sits at his kitchen table for a long while, staring out at the forest and the occasional birds fluttering by, rabbits in the grass or lying in the shade beneath trees. Once Credence has been reset and taken apart, bit by bit, there will be no conscience anymore. It’ll be like he never existed, no body to bury, nowhere to go after, as Credence put it.  
  
But Graves knows him and it doesn’t sit right with him. He cares, yes, but he also has always done what’s necessary and has never gotten on a personal level with an android before.  
  
Any uncompromised android would behave similarly enough to Credence. Beyond the philosophical discussions of their emotions, their rights being violated and their resets, they would otherwise be similar to Credence, especially so depending on what programs are uploaded into them.  
  
He’s another android in a line of many and Graves knows he needs to look at him that way.  
  
But he sees the window where Credence sat and smiled at the night sky, at deer and birds and the sunrise with wonder, and he sees the way he smiled when he spoke to Graves about it.  
  
“Alright,” Graves sighs and looks at the ceiling. “Enough.”  
  
Graves gets up and walks to the room Credence is in. He doesn’t look at him as he picks him up, over the shoulder because androids are light, their synthetic skin and muscle the heaviest things about them. He leaves his home and has it secured tightly and puts Credence in his vehicle. He gets in and tells it to take him to work and sends a message to Jauncey he’ll be arriving in the warehouse shortly and to be prepared to take Credence upstairs.  
  
He doesn’t look at Credence as the car drives smoothly and quietly out of the forests and toward Manhattan and knows it’s better this way.  
  
For a brief moment he thinks of sending Eliza a message but he brushes that thought aside as soon as it comes. Wouldn’t want her to get the idea that she’s right about him needing company, needing an android of his own - a safe one - and pushing him to get one for himself.  
  
Graves thinks that if there was ever a moment he thought about it, that’s as good as gone as well.  
  
Eventually he merges in with Manhattan traffic and looks up at GAMAS as it gets closer. A towering and artfully twisting building, black with dashes of blues and silvers and oranges, attractive and a stunning piece of architecture. A well-respected place and the most in demand name in android manufacturing and Graves wonders if maybe that’s a reason someone would access an android of his remotely.  
  
It’s a worry now, stuck in the back of his mind, that this is going to be a widespread problem, but he’s got people working on that already too.  
  
He lowers his window so his face can be scanned before the gates leading to the massive back lots of the factory and warehouse open to him. They close swiftly after and Graves instructs his car to one of the bays, where Jauncey, a few of her technicians, and Fontaine wait. There’s a mobile chair for Credence, likely Fontaine’s own paranoia to take another look before they disassemble him and Graves’ stomach is uneasy, but in a few moments it will be out of his hands and when there’s nothing more that he can do about, he’ll be able to move on from it.  
  
Graves gets out of his car and shares a wry look with Fontaine. “Been shutdown since I expressed my concerns, Mister Fontaine,” he says dryly when Fontaine raises an eyebrow. “Take him and see if you can find anything. Jauncey, what are your ideas on finding out if this is affecting any others?”  
  
“Sending out a patch with a code reader attached that no owners can detect,” Jauncey says. “But the fact that we can’t find anything in _his_ code doesn’t give me much hope.”  
  
“Only has to be one,” Fontaine says as he helps one of the technicians get Credence out of the car and into the chair. “Secure line for one more look,” he adds when he plugs a cable into Credence’s port and brings up a holopad. “Coming with, Percy?”  
  
Graves watches them and debates saying no. But he tells his car to go park itself in his spot on the other end of the building and walks to his team. They walk inside of the bay and Graves does look at Credence then, unable to help it.  
  
Credence’s fingers twitch.  
  
Before Graves can process that, Credence’s eyes open.  
  
“Stop,” Graves says abruptly and Credence’s eyes snap to him. “He’s awake.”  
  
“He’s what?” Fontaine barks and looks at Credence.  
  
Credence moves quickly, as all androids do, made of light titanium and lighter circuitry, and he’s out of the chair and unplugged before any of them can grab him. He runs then, out of the bay and toward the gate.  
  
“Lock it down!” Graves shouts.  
  
Jauncey does but Credence scales the wall easily in one jump, and once he’s over it, he’s into the streets of Manhattan.  
  
“Fuck!” Fontaine says. “I can’t shut him down, something is blocking our control of him. Get his tracker going! All cameras, Percy?”  
  
“Not yet,” Graves says, his heart racing. If he tells law enforcement about a rogue android who is capable of things he shouldn’t be capable of, they’ll put out an alert which will not only cause alarm but could be extremely damaging to his company. “Just ours for now. Do not alert authorities, he has shown no propensity for violence.”  
  
“And if he does, it’ll be too fucking late,” Fontaine says. “You willing to risk that?”  
  
“He won’t hurt anyone,” Graves says. He knows this to be true, but he can see that Fontaine thinks he’s full of shit. “He’s frightened about losing his life. He fears being reset and he knew he was going to be.”  
  
And Graves let him know it’d be for good, but he’s not about to tell them that.  
  
“Percy,” Jauncey says and looks at him. “His tracker isn’t working.”  
  
“Excuse me?” Graves demands and moves to the holopad she’s holding, looking down at it.  
  
Credence’s face, his model number, his specs and his tracking device are all here, but where a map showing his movements should be is only a map of GAMAS’ headquarters.  
  
Graves stares down at it. “Cameras, but no police yet,” he says quietly, trying to work through what he’s seeing and what might be the answer to it. “Follow him and see where he takes us.”  
  
Jauncey and Fontaine pull up the cameras on their holopads and jog toward the elevator to get upstairs where more screens can be accessed.  
  
Graves watches them go before he looks at where Credence had gone over the wall. Credence won’t harm anyone as he is now, Graves knows that, but if he’s been given any other commands, has any other code that they could never find, it could change. He knows that too.  
  
He closes his eyes and runs his fingers through his hair.  
  
Credence will go one of two places, Graves thinks.  
  
Into the grasp of whoever might be at fault for this or a place he feels safe in. The forests of New York are expansive and if he disappears into them, there may be no finding him at all. Not unless Credence wanted to be found someday or he was given a command to go elsewhere.  
  
But they’ve got cameras of their own on the streets and will hopefully stop him before he leaves Manhattan or before he’s in someone else’s hands.  
  
Graves opens his holopad and while he doesn’t think Credence will go to his home, a place that doesn’t hold any good memories for him, not really, he ensures the sensitivity of his cameras and alarms are as high as they can go.  
  
He walks through the bay then, toward the elevator and into a potential shitshow. Adrenaline is coursing through his veins, probably keeping down the urge to vomit or worry about Credence, and it’s easy to step into his role as a leader, whether it’s leading his company through massive strides or he’s leading his company through an emergency.  
  
Graves is the face of GAMAS and he can’t worry about Credence.  
  
Only the shitshow he’s at the center of.  
  
When Graves gets upstairs and into Jauncey’s lab, Fontaine throws his arms in the air.  
  
“Well at least we fucking know someone has remote access to him!” he says angrily. “He didn’t come out of shutdown by his own fucking doing!”  
  
Graves waves his hand for quiet, because he damn well knows that, and walks to the numerous screens that are projected in the air. Barrows points at one of the screens.  
  
“Got over the wall and went west,” he says. “We’re tracking him still. Tried to blend in for a minute here, we should be seconds behind him,” he adds and points at another screen as it switches views.  
  
“There,” Jauncey says, pointing at Credence, obvious in a crowd of many due to his height and the cut of his hair. “Down an alley.”  
  
Graves watches as Credence turns down an alley and the camera shifts to capture it. It’s a dead end, backing up to another skyscraper, used only as space to wait for a taxi, usually.  
  
Credence is gone.  
  
Graves’ heart skips a beat until Jauncey points and he sees movement on the ground. “Sewage,” he says and feels a large weight settle on his shoulders. “Only one set of eyes down there.”  
  
“They’ll figure out he’s one of ours pretty fucking quick,” Fontaine says. “Alert the police before they do. He’ll be taken in, Percy, and we won’t have much of a choice then.”  
  
“I’m aware,” Graves says as he stares at the screen. He frowns and shakes his head. “Unless he goes in the pipes.”  
  
“The pipes?” Jauncey asks and looks at him. “Percy, he obviously has more self-preservation than that. It could damage him beyond repair just being in there and he doesn’t know where they would lead.”  
  
“But his self-preservation is to get as far away from prying eyes as he can and he might take the risk,” Graves says and shakes his head. “He’s read so many things about the city. He could have picked up where they lead for all we know.”  
  
“So we have an android being remotely accessed by who knows who,” Fontaine says angrily, “who gave him the programming or command to save his own life at all costs, hidden from us, and we don’t have any idea who, how or why. And our best way to figure out _something,_ instead of being left high and fucking dry, just went through the sewage pipes. We have to send a memo out.”  
  
Barrows shakes his head. “We send a memo out to be on alert for this android and we lose our buyers’ trust,” he says. “We get a visit from the police, who will put out a nationwide alert. GP87As are going to be returned en masse, along with numerous others.”  
  
Graves knows all of this and crosses his arms, pacing the room as he thinks. Thinks of what’s best for the public, for his androids, for his company.  
  
Transparency will always win out, will keep the trust, and if they can figure out who is doing this, if they can point a finger and be backed by law enforcement, if they can securely fix the issue, buyers will come back.  
  
Billions. It’ll be a loss in the billions and Graves’ business minded side of the brain screams in protest. But the longer they keep it hidden from the police, from the public eye, the less transparent and trustworthy they are.  
  
They’ve had small incidents in the past, recalls and malfunctions that were dangerous, especially in the company’s infancy. But they weren’t acutely dangerous like this is now, a danger that’s unknown, that has either spread or hasn’t - and is really a matter of when, Graves suspects - and he knows what to do.  
  
What’s right.  
  
“Contact the police,” he says and the room goes quiet. “Tell them to have eyes on sewage, if he hasn’t gone into the pipes. Eyes on exit points and manhole covers. Give them his information and tell them what we know. Tell them the best way to avoid panic is to not tell the general public affected androids come out of shutdown mode. If they want to put out a statewide or nationwide alert, we’ll put out a memo to all buyers and recommend shutdown until we know how far this goes.”  
  
His team is staring at him and Graves looks at them and raises his eyebrows, until they get moving.  
  
“Doesn’t leave this room until necessary,” Graves says and leaves the lab. He takes the elevator up to his office and keeps it locked down as he moves to his sofa.  
  
He sits down and holds his head in his hands for a while. Tries to think of who, _who_ might gain from this, and the answer might seem obvious. Rival android manufacturing companies. But that’s not what this stinks of and there is very little reason for competition. He is the best in android innovation and stealing ideas out of the head of one of his androids is foolish not only for patents but criminality’s sake.  
  
This isn’t a rival company.  
  
Graves has no enemies, certainly none that would go to this length.  
  
This is technology they don’t know yet, technology that should be impossible. It should be impossible to remotely access one of his androids in the first place, but to put hidden programming and code in him, without a single trace... it’s unfathomable and Graves can’t even begin to guess who might spend the time figuring out how and for what purposes.  
  
He gets a glass and a bottle of whiskey and pours one, ignoring his shaking hands. He sits at his desk and drinks and awaits word from his team on what the police intend to do.  
  
When Graves has an incoming call from Fontaine, he answers it and sees Fontaine’s face, still down in the lab, and he looks as exhausted and pissed off as Graves feels.  
  
“He went into the fucking pipes,” Fontaine sighs. “Police have eyes on all exits. They’ll have units on them too, they’re shutting down some exits so he only has a few ways to go. When he’s out, they’ll take him in.”  
  
“And if he slips through their grasp?”  
  
“Didn’t like it when I asked them that,” Fontaine says dryly. “But they’ll put out an alert then. They seem confident they’ll be able to take him in.”  
  
Graves takes a drink of his whiskey, knowing well what misplaced confidence can do. “What’d they say about an android being remotely accessed?”  
  
“Looking for unusual power surges or uncharacteristic signatures,” Fontaine says. “Told them to go back up to three months ago, a bit before he started learning on his own. There’s got to be a signature somewhere, Percy. It’s impossible to not leave one.”  
  
“Impossible to remotely access him too,” Graves says and raises his glass when Fontaine looks upward, as if pleading with the heavens to give him patience. “Keep a line with them open and let me know.”  
  
“Will do,” Fontaine says and ends the call.  
  
Graves leans back in his chair and pours himself more whiskey. He thinks of Credence, out there and terrified, fighting for his life because he’s scared to lose it, and wonders what there is to gain out of this.  
  
If he’s found, it’ll be immediate destruction and Graves closes his eyes and tries not to think about it.  
  
A soft ping alerts him to a message and he brings up his personal holopad from the band around his arm, expecting to see something from his team.  
  
There is no name on the message.  
  
 _Let my people go, so that they may worship me, or this time I will send the full force of my plagues against you and against your officials and your people, so you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth. For by now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with a plague that would have wiped you off the earth. But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth._  
  
——  
  
The police don’t find Credence.  
  
The message is untraceable, no possible signature to be found, and day steadily turns to night.  
  
Graves reads the message numerous times. He recognized it immediately, despite not being a religious man, but simply a person who studied and loves history. A trait he shares with Credence but he is doing what he can to not think about him.  
  
Moses was a prince before the Hebrew God gave him His power and helped to free His people from oppression and lead them to a prosperous land.  
  
The message has been given to the police and Graves isn’t entirely surprised when they decide to keep this quiet for now. It’s become more ominous to them but there has been no sign of rebellion from a single other android.  
  
They’re monitoring all messages from buyers and owners and none complain about their androids’ behavior. Graves doesn’t know if that means they’re unaffected or simply haven’t been triggered into acting yet by something hidden in their code.  
  
What he does know is that even with remotely accessing Credence, whoever did it had to be close to him at the time. An en masse change to his - or all - androids would have been detected. There’s no way to hide that sort of technological signature and there are people who monitor these things for a living.  
  
Their only hope is that whoever has done this has only been able to do it to a small number of androids, even if they had up to three months to do it.  
  
There are simply too many of them for it to have gotten to them all and androids are designed to be unable to access another android’s mainframe.  
  
Remotely accessing one is difficult enough, but trying to use an affected android such as Credence to remotely access another should be another impossibility and Graves thinks it likely is because of the time it would take to accomplish it.  
  
Graves and Fontaine sit in his office later in the evening and share his whiskey.  
  
“Heads says rogue android. Tails says a piece of shit wanting to look like it is,” Fontaine says with a holographic quarter on his palm. “Either says we drink.”  
  
Graves smirks. “Either says we drink,” he says and watches Fontaine flip the coin. Heads again, for the eighth time in a row and eventually there should be some mathematical improbability to it, but that’s all been thrown out of the window, as far as Graves is concerned.  
  
They drink.  
  
“Not one of ours,” Fontaine says for at least the third time. “Barebone might have been remotely accessed but if it’s another rogue android, he’s not ours.”  
  
“I don’t know, Fontaine, it’s hard to be sure the sky is blue anymore,” Graves says and pours more whiskey into their glasses. “There have been three rogue androids in recent memory, all programmed to be by their creators, and all found fairly quickly.”  
  
“Yes,” Fontaine says impatiently. “Because they left their signature all over the fucking place. This is stealthy and I wasn’t thinking of androids when I was trying to find a signature. This stinks of an android’s own work, not influenced by a creator. Or, I should say, like Barebone, influenced a while ago and allowed to develop his own thoughts and beliefs for a long fucking time. Long enough to be able to come up with this kind of work on his own.”  
  
Graves rubs his hand over his chin and his thoughts are becoming a bit sluggish, which means he should put away the whiskey, but he takes another drink instead. He’s inclined to agree with Fontaine on this.  
  
Humans cause human error. An android being given programming to act on his own free will, to think and feel things they shouldn’t be able to do, and to learn for months or years, an android who would know code and programming as well as Fontaine, could be capable of this.  
  
It’s still a matter of who. Who the fuck let this happen to an adroid and who the fuck is the android? Where are they?  
  
Comparing themselves to God is a little amusing, though, Graves thinks. Once people start thinking they’re god-like and everyone else is lesser, they tend to make mistakes.  
  
Even androids.  
  
“Which one’s after this?” Graves asks, because he agrees with Fontaine and has nothing to argue against.  
  
“After what?” Fontaine grouses and tips back his whiskey.  
  
“Thunderstorms of hail and fire, wasn’t it?”  
  
Fontaine is quiet for a while. “Locusts,” he finally grunts. “The fucking locusts.”  
  
Graves laughs and holds up his glass. “Locusts. That’s right. Locusts as far as the eye can see,” he says and takes another drink. “Was the message only dramatic? Or was it a warning we’re going to have a full android rebellion in Manhattan? Androids as far as the eye can see.”  
  
“Hope not,” Fontaine says. “Or we’ll have to press the big button. Then we’ll be out of a fucking job.”  
  
“We will be,” Graves agrees. “Comparing himself to the God of Hebrews. That makes us Pharaoh. Pharaohs were believed to be mediators between gods and men. I think he’s telling us we can’t play God.”  
  
“Funny,” Fontaine says, “because without us, he wouldn’t exist. Creations turning against creators, Percy, what do we call that?”  
  
“Adolescence,” Graves says and smiles when Fontaine snorts. “Judas did betray the son of God.”  
  
Fontaine grunts. “Bet it ends up being one of Fawley’s,” he says and staggers to his feet, setting his glass on a bookshelf. “Going to my office to sleep it off. We’ll hear something before morning.”  
  
“We will,” Graves agrees and finishes his whiskey. He lies back on the sofa after he’s locked the office down and stares up at the ceiling, the city's lights bright against it, blues and whites and dashes of pinks.  
  
“Credence,” Graves sighs and closes his eyes. “I’m sorry.”


	2. Chapter 2

By morning, the most they’ve gotten out of the police is that they’re combing the city’s cameras for sightings and have flagged Credence’s model number for any public transportation he might take.   
  
There is no trace of him and there is no trace of anything else. No other androids rebelling against their owners, no disruptions at all in the city beyond the occasional human-caused ones.   
  
No other android manufacturers have reported anything strange to GAMAS or the police. The police advised GAMAS to not inform the other manufacturers and Graves is glad for it, because he would have pushed for it otherwise. Very few people in GAMAS know what’s happening and only police departments specializing in androids know about it in the police force.   
  
He has no control over other companies and what they might put out to the public.   
  
Graves typically has a good rapport with the police and the government because it’s smart to for when shit gets ugly, as it now has.   
  
But Manhattan is quiet despite how many eyes are on the lookout and it’s a quiet Graves doesn’t like. There are a few potential leads throughout the day, but nothing substantial or anything that would point them in the direction of Credence or whoever is doing this.   
  
By the end of the evening, Graves is unshaved, unshowered, underfed and too close to opening another bottle of whiskey, so he leaves Barrows and Jauncey to handle the office and leaves with Fontaine.   
  
“We’ve been through worse, haven’t we?” Fontaine asks hopefully in the garage, as they await their vehicles.   
  
“Not that I can recall.”   
  
“No, thought not,” Fontaine sighs. “What’s that old saying about rock bottom?”   
  
“Only place left to go is up,” Graves says. “But in my experience, rock bottom is only the first level down.”   
  
“Always have loved your optimism,” Fontaine says and gets into his vehicle when the door opens. “Might be shit for a while. But if Barebone can climb out of shit, so can we.”   
  
Graves chuckles and salutes Fontaine before he drives off. He gets in his vehicle and tells it to take him home.   
  
The police have asked Graves to inform them if any alarms at his home are triggered or if Credence were to come to the house, but neither of those things have happened. A bear did set off his alarm around four in the morning, which managed to scare the shit out of him, but he and the police informed of the alarm hadn’t needed to do much but curse it and turn it off.   
  
He dozes on the way home and tries not to think about how the last time he took the drive, Credence sat at his side. Credence was at his side when they left as well, but that’s an unpleasant thought and Graves shoves it away to try and get a few minutes of rest.   
  
It’s raining by the time his vehicle glides up the road and to his home. Graves rubs his eyes and looks at the solid walls surrounding the property. When his vehicle stops outside of the gate, he lowers the tint so he doesn’t have to lower the window and let’s the computer scan his face.   
  
It’s then that he sees something move in the dark, in between the first line of trees on the side of the road and the high walls of his property. Graves hisses at his vehicle to stop and reverses it.   
  
“Lights on exterior front walls,” Graves says quietly and squints when they flick on.   
  
The darkness beyond them and the rain and the greyness of stone walls is a sight that makes his heart race, ominous and unsettling, and he looks for where he saw movement, hoping it was only another damn bear.   
  
But they are no bear. A person, huddled tight against a tree, wrapped around themselves, but the dark hair and pale line of a neck tells Graves exactly who it is. Who he knew it would be.   
  
Graves should call the police. He should get Credence inside after doing so and keep him there until they arrive. He could disassemble Credence himself, though he thinks Credence wouldn’t make that easy for him after he’d betrayed his trust already.   
  
But Credence has come back here and Graves doesn’t know why. He has to know that Graves is likely to see to it that he is disassembled, especially now. He knows it’s dangerous to be here and Graves can’t fathom why he would risk coming back.   
  
He looks around the trees, not entirely sure how Credence has managed to not set off the cameras or alarms. Not entirely sure there isn’t another person with him that managed the same thing. But it doesn’t feel like a trap, it doesn’t feel like Graves will be walking into a situation designed to hurt him.   
  
Graves doubts, even now, even if someone is seeing everything Credence is and still has access to him, that he will be overridden and commanded to hurt Graves. That’s not what this is about. This isn’t about blood and it’s not about money. It’s about a principle, Graves thinks, and shedding blood or demanding payment tarnish the principle matter. It would be primitive and this is about ascension.   
  
He gets out of his vehicle and doesn’t care about the rain. He walks to where Credence is huddled and when he gets close, Credence looks up at him.   
  
His eyes are wide with fear and he’s filthy, though some of the rain has washed the worst of it away. He’s soaked and shaking, his temperature regulator either faulty or warning him to seek warmer temperatures.   
  
Graves stares down at him and he does understand why Credence came here. Because the last thing he wants to do is call the police. The last thing he wants to do is disassemble Credence or let someone else do it. Credence came here hoping he’d feel this way and Graves does, but he thinks that will change and sooner than Credence realizes.   
  
But for now he can help Credence to calm down.   
  
He offers his hand and after a moment of hesitation, Credence takes it. Graves leads him to the gates and tells his vehicle to park itself as he walks with Credence through the courtyard inside the circular drive. The cameras will recognize him and his vehicle and no alarms will be set off and the feed isn’t being monitored anyway, so Graves isn’t particularly worried.   
  
“Take your clothes off and leave them here,” Graves says and gestures at the ground in front of the steps leading up to the door. “I have towels in my vehicle.”   
  
Credence nods jerkily and begins to peel his shirt off. Most of it has been washed away but he smells like he’s gone through the sewage pipes and Graves isn’t bringing that inside. He gets a towel out of his vehicle and locks it down before walking up the steps with Credence, until they’re under the cover of the house.   
  
He tells Credence to get his legs and feet dry and kicks his own shoes off before they walk inside and into warmth. Credence is still shaking and Graves takes the towel and wraps it around his shoulders.   
  
There are no injuries, a miracle really, but Credence has gone through a couple of days of terror and looks like it.   
  
“Credence,” Graves says quietly. “You know the danger you pose not being shut down or disassembled entirely.”   
  
Credence looks at Graves and his eyes are sad, heavy and tired, but not for sleep. “No one is in control of me, Director Graves,” he says, his voice trembling.   
  
“That you know of,” Graves sighs. “Your fear of disassembly can’t outweigh the safety of other androids and their owners. You know that.”   
  
“I had the thought to learn one day so I did. The nightmares started then too,” Credence says. “But no one has put any other thoughts into my systems since then.”   
  
Graves can’t believe that. He doesn’t and he can’t get comfortable with Credence. But even if he was wrong and Credence turned violent, there are ways he can stop it. So he only nods and leads Credence to the stairs.   
  
He takes him into his bedroom and into the master bathroom, large and beautiful and one of Graves’ favorite rooms and looking at Credence, he can see he might feel the same.   
  
Graves smiles, exhausted in every way he can be but glad to see Credence is still interested in new things, and tells the shower to turn on to his preferred temperature. He takes the towel from Credence and disposes of it.   
  
“Will you take me to GAMAS tomorrow?” Credence asks. He’s still shaking, but it’s getting better. He’s looking around the bathroom, rather than at Graves.   
  
“I don’t know,” Graves says honestly. “I don’t know what tomorrow holds for either of us. I know what tonight does. Go on, get in, get that stench off of you.”   
  
Credence looks at Graves. “I didn’t mean to run away,” he says and it’s bordering on terror so suddenly that Graves moves to him. “I was afraid, I was afraid I would die and I wouldn’t see my sisters again, I was afraid, I was afraid—”   
  
“Credence,” Graves says.  _ “Credence,” _ he says more firmly, grasping his shoulders, and Credence abruptly stops speaking, blinking as he looks at Graves. “I’m sorry. It’s my fault you were so scared. I’m sorry for doing that to you, I truly am. But you’re here now and it’s alright. It’s alright. Come on, get in the shower.”   
  
“I don’t want to die,” Credence says softly, pleadingly.   
  
Graves’ heart is racing and his eyes are dry, but they sting and he shakes his head. “Get in the shower,” he says, more hoarsely. “Please.”   
  
Credence does then, however reluctantly, stepping past the glass and into the large shower, half fogged with steam. He stands under the spray and Graves moves to the sink and washes his hands. A look at himself doesn’t do him any favors but he brushes his teeth, glancing in the mirror at Credence occasionally, who doesn’t make any actual moves to clean himself.   
  
“Fuck,” Graves mutters after he’s spit and rinsed his mouth out. He moves to the shower and looks in at Credence. “Credence. You know how to wash yourself. I’ll get you into dry clothes after.”   
  
“It feels good,” Credence mumbles. “Better than the sewage pipes.”   
  
Graves huffs a small laugh, unable to help it. “I can only imagine,” he says. “You’re lucky you didn’t sustain any damage.”   
  
“I remembered them,” Credence says. “When I saw blueprints of the city once. I knew which way was safest. I knew how much time I had between getting in and out of them before being found.”   
  
“Unpleasant for everyone involved, Credence,” Graves says. “You’ve been causing the police and GAMAS a headache.”   
  
“Would you have let yourself be killed, Director Graves?”   
  
“You are the only android who has expressed a fear of being killed, Credence,” Graves says quietly. “Humanity’s innate desire to stay alive. You know you’re unique in that.”   
  
“And because I’m unique in that I feel the same as a human would, it matters less? You look down on me for something you might praise a loved one for. Fighting for their life.”   
  
Graves is too fucking tired for this. He understands now, understands the fear, but he’s too tired to discuss it. He rubs his hands over his face and looks up at the marbled ceiling for a while. “You’re lucky I didn’t hose you down outside,” he says. “Wash your damn hair.”   
  
Credence shoots him a frown, irritable, and much more lively than he’s looked since Graves saw him outside in the rain. But he does get shampoo in his hands and washes his hair, slowly and with care, and Graves is glad for it, because he’d make him do it again if he didn’t.   
  
Once he’s soaped himself down a few times - every inch - Graves lets him out of the shower and wraps him in one of his fluffy white towels.   
  
“Dry off,” he says and points at the closet in the back half of the bathroom. “Get some pajamas to wear and sit on the bed. Don’t go anywhere else.”   
  
Graves watches Credence dry himself and walk into the closet before he sheds his own clothes and gets into the shower. He didn’t swim through any sewage pipes but he did get drunk and worked through nearly two immensely stressful days, which is a special sort of grime, and he’s glad to get it off.   
  
Has no fucking clue what he’s going to do about Credence quite yet, but one step at a time.   
  
He watches Credence walk by the shower and out of the bathroom and finishes his shower. Once he’s dried, he gets into a simple shirt and the pants he wears when he jogs because they’re soft and because he won’t need to change if he has to move suddenly.   
  
Graves expects Credence to be gone when he walks into the bedroom but he’s sitting on the edge of the bed and looks at Graves.   
  
“Are you afraid of me, Director Graves?”   
  
“I am not,” Graves says. “I’m afraid for the people you put in jeopardy. I’m afraid that what’s happened to you is going to happen to others. I’m afraid for my company’s survival if it does. I’m afraid someone is watching your feed at this very moment.”   
  
Credence frowns. “No one has access to my feed except me.”   
  
“I’m also afraid,” Graves says and sits next to Credence, “that every word out of your mouth can’t be trusted. You were remotely tampered with, Credence, and I know you know it. It makes you dangerous when you can lie to even me, regardless if you’re meaning to or not. It makes you more dangerous when someone can bring you out of shutdown mode remotely. You know your systems aren’t fully in your - or our - control.”   
  
Credence doesn’t say anything for a while, staring down at his hands. “If other androids can have different thoughts than what they’re programmed to have, that makes them all dangerous.”   
  
“Yes.”   
  
“But you won’t have them all destroyed.”   
  
“No, that’s an impossibility.”   
  
“Why do I have to be destroyed then?”   
  
Graves runs his hands through his damp hair and shakes his head. “Because you’re the first and only that we know of. We could find something we otherwise couldn’t. Something outside of your code, something in your hardware.”   
  
“But you won’t find anything,” Credence says softly. “And I’ll be taken apart forever. I don’t want to die.”   
  
“Losing one android to prevent this happening to many others, to prevent whatever who is doing this wants, is more important than your continued operation.”   
  
Credence looks at Graves and the zest for life is gone, even if he wants to live. The heaviness is back, the fear and sadness.   
  
“You care about me, Director Graves,” he says. “You don’t want me to die either.”   
  
“It doesn’t matter how I feel,” Graves says and rubs his hand over his forehead, looking away from Credence. “And I’ll put the safety of everyone who has trusted my company enough to buy from me above yours. I am sorry, Credence, but that’s the way it needs to be. If you run again, you risk a lot of peoples’ safety and you risk your death in a sudden and violent way if you’re found by police. Whether by design or your choice, if you can’t offer us any aid, I have no choice.”   
  
“I’m not hiding anything. I’m not lying,” Credence says and he looks pained. “If someone did this to me, why would they? Why would they make me feel this way? Why would they give me nightmares?”   
  
“Those are the questions I’ve been asking you and that you can’t or won’t answer.”   
  
“Do you have your own answers?”   
  
“I’m not going to discuss my thoughts on it,” Graves says. “You know why.”   
  
Credence looks around the large room. At the floors and high ceilings, at the furniture and paintings on the wall. At the bookshelves and armchair in the corner, as if committing them all to memory.   
  
“If someone has remote access to me, are you not afraid they’ll tell me to hurt you?”   
  
Graves smiles wryly. “You’re sitting next to me in my home, Credence,” he says. “That should answer your question.”   
  
Credence doesn’t ask why. He looks away, down at his hands, and wiggles his fingers on his right hand. Still thinking about the attack, Graves supposes, and the fear he experienced with it. He’s not under someone’s complete control or they would know it, but Graves doesn’t know what occasionally might be commanded. To bring him out of shutdown mode was a command in his programming and Graves would love to look at it, would love to see if they could find that signature, but he’s not going to try himself. Not through his computer connected directly to GAMAS. They’ve done that enough already, though no breaches have been discovered and likely will not be.   
  
Not even remote access can get past the security in place for protecting their most sensitive information. Androids have no way of accessing it so the android doing this has no way to access it.   
  
If the android worked at GAMAS it would be a different story, Graves thinks wryly. Which is why he’s only ever employed humans, unlike other companies who have androids on payroll, and why he fires anyone who steps a toe out of line.   
  
Like Abernathy.   
  
Graves’ heart skips a beat as he remembers the name, the man.   
  
Fired six years after the company was founded, when they were smaller but rapidly growing. Graves had hired him when they’d graduated because he was a skilled technician and someone Graves had known for years already. He hired many of the classmates that he graduated with, that he trusted and was willing to give a chance.   
  
Abernathy did his work and he did it well for nearly five years. Discrepancies started showing up in various programs, code not written or designed by Fontaine, and it was never put into any of the androids by the time they found out he was experimenting with code that went against the moral values of android production.   
  
Doing it on company time, with GAMAS technology, where everything was logged no matter how hard he tried to hide it, had been stupidity Graves hadn’t expected from Abernathy.   
  
He’d been fired and blacklisted from working with androids at any manufacturing company, in the United States or otherwise. They’d had to rewrite programs with different codes and patch every android they’d sold at that point to avoid him being able to obtain one and trying to hack into their system to continue experimenting, even if it was only on one android.   
  
A costly nightmare and it’s been fourteen years since it happened. Fourteen years of not even hearing the man’s name again and Graves assumed he either left Manhattan or the state entirely to get away from the stain on his name.   
  
Graves doesn’t know if he’s off base here or not. He doesn’t know if the similarity between what Abernathy was doing and what’s being done here is making him paranoid and turning him down dead-end streets or if this is a trail that might lead to the answers.   
  
“Director Graves?”   
  
Graves looks at Credence, who is peering at him with concern. He smiles. “Don’t check if I have a fever again,” he says. “I’m fine. Need some damn sleep, but I’m fine.”   
  
Credence smiles, very faintly, and nods. “You look tired,” he says. “I’ve made you tired.”   
  
“Yes, you fucking have,” Graves agrees with a sigh. “We should both get some sleep.” When Credence looks at him, scared again, Graves shakes his head. “You can put yourself into programmed sleep. I’m not going to plug you in. But I want you close to me tonight.”   
  
“You don’t trust me.”   
  
“Would you trust you, Credence, in my shoes? Do you trust yourself now?”   
  
Credence frowns. “I suppose I shouldn’t,” he says. “An odd feeling, to not trust yourself.”   
  
“Welcome to yet another experience of the human condition,” Graves says dryly. “This one I didn’t design. Stay here, I’m going to get water. Or whiskey, I’ll know when I get there.”   
  
Graves stands after Credence has nodded and leaves the bedroom. He walks downstairs and into the kitchen, bringing up his holopad and opening the only secure line he trusts at this point.   
  
He sends a message to Fontaine and can only hope he understands it. He turns off the holopad and gets a glass of water before walking back upstairs, telling the house to secure itself and go into sleep mode.   
  
Credence is still sitting on the edge of the bed when Graves walks inside and he closes the door behind himself.   
  
“Water’s healthier, isn’t it?” he says and sets it on the nightstand. “Get some rest.”   
  
Credence seems reluctant to do so, but he lies down on the other side of the bed and Graves lies down as well and waits for him to put himself into sleep mode.   
  
Once he has, Graves brings up the line with Fontaine and sees a message waiting for him.   
  
_ I remember those years fondly. I’ll raise a glass to them. _   
  
_ Good, _ Graves thinks with relief, and turns off his holopad and looks up at the ceiling, dark from the storm outside, and wonders if they’ll hit a dead end. He looks at Credence and hopes for his sake that they find the answer. If they do, if they get on the right trail, he may not need to be disassembled.   
  
But Graves isn’t going to hope for that. He already cares about Credence more than he should and if things had gone the way they were supposed to, he’d be mourning his loss at this very moment.   
  
Credence is next to him again and Graves tries not to think about how relieved and grateful he feels to see him whole, to hear him say  _ Director Graves, _ to watch him smile.   
  
It can all go to shit at any moment and Graves needs to be able to handle it if it does.   
  
——   
  
“Director Graves?”   
  
Graves flinches awake, hearing another person’s voice next to him in bed strange enough, but the reality of his last few days hits just as quickly. He looks at Credence, his heart hammering away, and if he trusted him more, he would have made him sleep in another room.   
  
Credence is on his side, peering at Graves and who knows how long he’s been doing that for?   
  
“The sun isn’t even up yet,” Graves grouses, a little breathlessly.   
  
“It is,” Credence says. “It’s still storming. I’m sorry for frightening you.”   
  
Graves rubs his hands over his face and shakes his head. “Think I might have deserved that,” he says and looks at Credence. “Should’ve told you to wait until I woke up to come out of sleep.”   
  
Credence frowns. “I’ve only been awake for a few minutes,” he says. “Because I thought you might want to be awake when I was.”   
  
“Thank you,” Graves mutters and glances at the band around his wrist. No messages are waiting for him and he’s not entirely sure if that’s a good or bad thing. He glances at the clock and sees that it’s just going on seven. “I’m not sure I’ve eaten in the last twenty-four hours.”   
  
“That’s not healthy.”   
  
Graves looks at Credence wryly and Credence grins a little. “Another good joke,” he says and reluctantly climbs out of bed. He walks into the bathroom and rubs sleep out of his eyes before taking care of business. “Come on,” he says when he walks back into the bedroom. “Downstairs.”   
  
Credence follows him out of the bedroom and downstairs. Graves tells the computer to get coffee and toast going and watches Credence move to the windows as the metal fades into glass and sit down in the same spot, looking out at the yard and the forest through the rain.   
  
“Will the deer come?”   
  
“Most likely, it’s still early. They don’t mind the rain like we do,” Graves says as he watches Credence and feels his heart ache.   
  
Credence already fears so much and Graves wonders if it’s a violation to him, to know he’s compromised, that someone else may have complete control over him at any moment. It’s a violation for Graves to know it’s happening to his android when it shouldn’t, but he’s not sure how Credence feels about it. If he can feel that or if he understands that’s how he should feel, but doesn’t.   
  
Graves thinks he’s perfectly capable of it with everything he already is so scared of.   
  
He brings up his holopad and opens the police report. There’s a new report from CPS and he glances through it, grimacing. The girls have corroborated the footage Credence gave them and it’s not a good story, not yet, and he’s not sure if Credence will be here when it becomes one for Modesty and Chastity.   
  
He closes it and sends a message to Fontaine.   
  
Fontaine responds only a moment later when Graves is getting his coffee.   
  
_ Spoke with PD throughout the night. Gung-ho about it but taking their time. Should happen in the next few hours. Ping you when I know more. _   
  
Graves closes the holopad and looks at Credence, gazing up at the sky with a smile. He may kill Graves before any of this is over just being who he is and Graves grabs his coffee and hopes it helps him to concentrate on the problem at hand rather than the android who has wormed his way into Graves’ heart.   
  
He drinks his coffee and eats toast at the table and doesn’t have it in him to read the news. If anything pertinent was published, he would have been told about it and he doesn’t give a shit about tech or robotics right now. Graves merely drinks his coffee and watches Credence.   
  
Credence doesn’t gasp or point when deer eventually do come to graze, just grins and glances at Graves.   
  
Resilient, Graves thinks, to face what he has and experience the trauma of it all and still find joy and beauty in the world.   
  
He’s on his second cup of coffee when he gets a ping and opens his holopad.   
  
_ I met a traveller from an antique land _

_ Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone _

_ Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, _

_ Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, _

_ And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, _

_ Tell that its sculptor well those passions read _

_ Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, _

_ The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed: _

_ And on the pedestal these words appear: _

_ 'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: _

_ Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' _

_ Nothing beside remains. Round the decay _

_ Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare _

_ The lone and level sands stretch far away _   
  
Graves stares down at the message for a while before he rubs his temple. If nothing else, they have a propensity for dramatics, and that’s not Abernathy. The man couldn’t have had a god-like complex if he tried, too skittish and nervous for it, but if he put the desires for what he couldn’t be in an android, Graves wouldn’t be surprised if they developed this sort of arrogance.   
  
But the sonnet’s central theme is about a great ruler’s arrogance and perceived greatness and their inevitable fall, of the ruin that lies there now because in the end, their delusions of grandeur were only that. Delusions.   
  
The words on the pedestal have been taken at face value over the centuries, quoted by people who looked at the power in them but ignored the overall point that surrounded them.   
  
He understands that and he doesn’t think the android behind this is putting Graves in the fallen ruler’s place because he doesn’t see that a wasteland is what this android plans for, what he assumes Graves would be at fault for.   
  
Graves would think androids would be smarter than this, but if the android is a result of Abernathy’s work, who knows what he uploaded and wrote in the code.   
  
He sends the message to Fontaine and asks him to forward it to the police, though he doesn’t expect anything to come of it for now.   
  
It would be easy to lower his guard, to laugh at this and think it isn’t as serious as they’ve been fearing, but that would be a mistake. There is still a very real possibility of this spreading and becoming dangerous and while Graves still doesn’t think violence is a part of this, it doesn’t mean it won’t be before they put a stop to it.   
  
“Director Graves?” Credence asks and when Graves looks at him, he’s frowning. “What made you follow in your mother’s footsteps?”   
  
Graves raises his eyebrows. “I’d like to think I didn’t,” he says. “Her expertise was in a different area of robotics. But I wasn’t given a lot of choice in my family. Politics or robotics and I chose robotics because politics piss me off and that would’ve been following in my father’s footsteps, which would have pissed me off more. Turned out that I was fairly good at this android creation thing.”   
  
Credence smiles. “You are,” he says. “The best and most in-demand name in the industry, despite your current fatal flaw.”   
  
Graves laughs and shakes his head, a little too fondly. “Let’s not call it fatal yet, for both your sake and mine.”   
  
“I would like to live,” Credence says quietly. “I’d like to see another sunrise. A sunset. My sisters. I do understand why I might not be able to.” His voice wavers with pain still. “I don’t think that whoever is doing this will let me be disassembled.”   
  
“Likely not,” Graves says. “Think yesterday was a good example of it. Don’t worry about it for now, Credence. You’re here and I’m not disassembling you.”   
  
“But that could change at any moment,” Credence says and looks out of the window. “I would like to stay here.”   
  
“We’ll only leave if we have to.”   
  
“When it’s all over, I mean. If I’m not destroyed.”   
  
Graves looks down at his coffee mug and tries not to feel like he’d owe Credence that. That if it all worked out in their favor and they fixed what went wrong, he would give Credence whatever the hell he wanted. Even if that meant living with an android, the way he’s never had a desire to.   
  
He looks at Credence and thinks that wouldn’t be so terrible if it was him.   
  
“We’ll see what happens,” Graves says. “It’s still a mystery.”   
  
Credence smiles faintly. “You don’t like mysteries.”   
  
“Do you?”   
  
“I like books about them. Ancient puzzles that have never been solved.”   
  
“Not as exciting when it involves yourself, is it?”   
  
“Not terribly,” Credence says and looks at Graves with a wider smile. “I don’t know why you haven’t told anyone I’m here but I’m glad you haven’t.”   
  
Graves can’t say much to that. He finishes his coffee and takes the mug to the sink before walking to Credence. He squeezes his shoulder. “I’m sorry for yesterday, Credence. What I told you last night is still true but I am sorry for scaring you.”   
  
“You’ve already apologized, Director Graves,” Credence says as he looks up at Graves. “If you can forgive the human emotion I feel and the trouble I’ve caused you for it, I can forgive you for the same.”   
  
“I appreciate that,” Graves says while he laughs. “You are satisfyingly blunt, I’ll give you that.” He smiles when Credence grins and walks into the living room.   
  
He turns the television on and sits on the sofa and glances at his wristband, but there’s nothing yet. It’s making him feel restless, waiting on a precipice for someone to push him over or pull him to safety, and it’s starting to make him fear what lies ahead.   
  
If the police are waiting to make a move on Abernathy, he’s clearly still in the city, and Graves appreciates that they want to do this right, but it leaves them waiting and not knowing how far the rabbit hole goes.   
  
Credence sits next to him, still too close, and looks at the television, on the history program from when he last watched it. “It’s going to rain all day.”   
  
Graves sighs. “Lucky us. Let’s hope it isn’t a bad omen.”   
  
“It’s inconvenient for humans when it rains. But rain both brings life and saves it. From the forests outside to the desert plains in Africa. I think I’d like to look at rain as a good omen.”   
  
Graves looks at Credence and smiles, just a little. “You are a conundrum of positivity and negativity.”   
  
Credence smiles when he looks at Graves. “Blame yourself, Director Graves, for letting me feel both.”   
  
“Oh, Credence, I already do,” Graves sighs and pats his thigh. “I already fucking do.”   
  
——   
  
Fontaine doesn’t call Graves until past noon.   
  
He walks out of the living room and into his office, soundproofing it so Credence - and whoever might be listening - can’t hear and answers the call.   
  
Fontaine is in his office at GAMAS and he looks grim. “You want the good news or bad news first?” he asks. “Never mind, there isn’t any good news. Abernathy’s dead.”   
  
Graves’ head is spinning and he raises his eyebrows. “When did that happen?”   
  
“Police estimate about three weeks ago, based on his decomposition.”   
  
“Fuck,” Graves says with a grimace. “He was in his home?”   
  
Fontaine nods. “Lived just outside of the city, no friends or family to check up on him. Based on the place, he became a recluse, especially in the last few years. Fuck ton of lab equipment. Back to experimenting,” he says. “He was murdered and I think we can assume by who.”   
  
Graves rubs his hand over his face and shakes his head. “Anything to glean from his computer systems?”   
  
“Destroyed,” Fontaine sighs. “Want to guess who did that as well?” He shakes his head. “But there are still things we can guess from the equipment. And, because I do happen to be a programming genius, destroyed does not mean erased. Not entirely.”   
  
“You were able to download from the system?”   
  
“Very little but very little is better than nothing. Different codes that are similar to what he was doing here but far more refined. Complete free will and certain beliefs about androids being the next step in human evolution, greater than humans, all that fucking nonsense. The most intriguing thing I was able to see was the year he began his work in that system.”   
  
Graves frowns. “Was it fourteen years ago?”   
  
“Thirteen. He was able to walk out of GAMAS with some of our software, don’t fucking know how we didn’t see it, but it probably took him a year to get the necessary equipment.”   
  
“He’s been in that place for thirteen years designing this?”   
  
“Always was late on his deadlines,” Fontaine says with a smirk. “He started his work thirteen years ago but it wasn’t just writing code, the way he was doing here.”   
  
Graves raises his eyebrows. “Uploading it?”   
  
“Yep,” Fontaine says, dry as can be. “Which means he walked out of here with more than software. One of ours, I’m sad to say.”   
  
“He never had an android assigned to him,” Graves says with some disbelief. “Never bought from us. How the fuck do we miss him walking out of GAMAS with an android?”   
  
“We were young then, Percy, the company and us,” Fontaine says. “Didn’t have the immense security we do now. Not even the building.”   
  
Graves sighs. “And I’m sure he did it well before we caught on to him,” he says and digs his palms into his eyes. “Any idea what model?”   
  
“I suppose there is a bit of good news in this shitstorm,” Fontaine says and smirks when Graves raises an eyebrow at him. “GP45EWD.”   
  
Graves blinks once and frowns. “EWD,” he says. “We shut that model down two years before he was fired.”   
  
“Which means he altered the code before that,” Fontaine agrees. “So we’ve got an EWD still in operation, murdering his own creator and sending cryptic messages like a fucking comic book villain. We’re going to enjoy getting to meet him.”   
  
Graves hums in agreement and looks up at the ceiling for a while. “Police have any idea what he looks like? Where he might be?”   
  
“Didn’t have to look too hard,” Fontaine says. “He left us a note. Wants to have a face to face one week from now. You and me and Credence. No police. No surprises. His post scriptum was to treat  _ his boy _ well because he’s fond of him.”   
  
“How nice of him,” Graves says and puts his elbows on the desk and holds his head in his hands. “If Credence shows himself—”   
  
“Oh, cut the shit with me, you bastard,” Fontaine grouses. “I know he’s with you, I can see it all over your face.” He shrugs when Graves looks at him, his eyebrows raised. “We can’t shut him down. We can’t let him run because he’ll only go one place.”   
  
Graves is tempted to deny it but Fontaine has twenty years of knowing him too well under his belt. “So what is your suggestion? He’s got eyes on us at all times if we keep Credence close. Throw him in solitary until a week from now?”   
  
“Bastard wants you to treat him  _ well,” _ Fontaine says. “I don’t think that would be treating him well.”   
  
“So he’s threatening retaliation before we meet,” Graves says flatly. “How do we know he isn’t bluffing?”   
  
“Abernathy was at this for thirteen years. Who fucking knows what the EWD has accomplished in that time? I don’t think it’s widespread, but it could have affected enough of them to make it a problem for the entire state, Percy. We can’t risk it either way in hopes that he’s bluffing.”   
  
“What does he think is going to happen in a week?”   
  
Fontaine shrugs. “I don’t know. I don’t read homicidal androids with a superiority complex code very often. Going to make demands, is what the police said. You told me it’s about a principle. Not playing God. He could have his hands deeper than just androids. We can’t know until we meet him,” he says and sighs. “Got us between a rock and a hard place. No idea what he looks like so there’s no tracking him through the city. If he ever deigns to use city transportation, he’s likely changed his serial number so he isn’t recognized.”   
  
Graves shakes his head and crosses his arms over his chest. “Shut that model down because of faulty code and they didn’t sell well,” he says. “Never did like them much.”   
  
“Pushed out in the early days to try and make some money,” Fontaine says with amusement. “Think we’ve refined them since. One loose model has taken advantage of all the shit that was wrong with it to begin with.”   
  
“Son of a bitch isn’t going to enjoy speaking with you and me,” Graves says and smirks when Fontaine chuckles in wry agreement. “He say where?”   
  
“Old Quarter,” Fontaine says with distaste.   
  
“Fuck, this asshole is dramatic,” Graves laughs. “Not many cameras there. How can he expect no police presence if he wants us there?”   
  
“I’m sure he does expect a police presence,” Fontaine says. “And is prepared for it.”   
  
“No surprises from us but plenty from him.”   
  
“Gods never play fair, Percy.”   
  
“They do not,” Graves agrees and sighs. “Anything else for now?”   
  
“I’ll message you if I hear more throughout the day. Don’t let anyone else know the boy is with you.”   
  
“Don’t call him that,” Graves says. “Keep me posted and I’ll try to watch my language in front of him.”   
  
Fontaine chuckles and salutes Graves before ending the call. Graves sighs and twists back and forth in his chair as he stares up at the ceiling, handsome mahogany wood dark from the storm outside.   
  
A week seems like an age away and spending it with Credence is like spending it with a trigger against his temple. He has no doubt EWD listens and observes their conversations but he can’t take Credence out of his home because it puts them both in danger.   
  
He doesn’t think Credence will run again. There will be no more attempts at disassembling him and Graves feels his stomach churn that it already almost happened to begin with. But even when he tells Credence what they’ll be doing in a week, he thinks Credence won’t run because he’s been compromised and it would be a futile attempt to flee from it.   
  
Androids, even ones who feel as they shouldn’t, are very good at calculating odds.   
  
Graves leaves his office and locks it down behind him. He walks down the hall and sees Credence is still on the sofa, his knees pulled under him, lounging and watching television, like he might any other day, if he’d been given a chance to lead a normal life as a personal android.   
  
He looks up when Graves walks into the living room and smiles. He’s looking for something on Graves’ face, Graves knows, a hint of what he’s feeling after the call, but he must not find anything or decides not to ask about it anyway. He looks back at the television instead.   
  
“Cloning was very controversial in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries,” Credence says when Graves sits down. “I suppose they couldn’t know how beneficial it would be one day.”   
  
“Scientists could have guessed it would be,” Graves says. “Convincing the public and the government at the time would have been impossible. The proof ended up being in the pudding a long while later after all.”   
  
“That was an expression first used in the fourteenth century.”   
  
“What do you think of it?”   
  
“I think fourteenth-century humans were very bizarre all around.”   
  
Graves laughs and rests his arm on the back of the sofa. “I think I might agree with you on that,” he says. “Interesting hats were in vogue then.”   
  
“Another interesting expression,” Credence says with a smile as he stares at the television. “I wonder what someone from the twentieth century would think to hear you use it.”   
  
“I’d rather know what they’d think about discussing outdated expressions with an android.”   
  
Credence glances at him, a little mischievous, before he looks back at the television. “It’s a mystery.”   
  
Graves smiles as he rests his chin in his hand and watches Credence, rather than the television, and thinks that EWD has one thing right.   
  
It’s not difficult to be fond of Credence Barebone.   
  
When he tells Credence later in the evening that there’s a possibility of stopping what’s happening, without mentioning his potential chance of surviving it, and that they’ve been asked to meet someone in a week, he takes it well enough.   
  
He’s quiet and withdrawn for a while, thinking of it all, and Graves isn’t surprised when he says that it disturbs him to know someone else shares his systems, that they see what he sees and hear what he hears. That he might be taken over without knowing it or without being able to stop it at any moment. That it frightens him to not be himself anymore.   
  
Graves can only try and reassure him that he’s safe here, for now, and that they’ll stay home for the week and worry about things when it’s time to. He doesn’t tell Credence that EWD wants him to be treated well because he thinks Credence might try to leave then and he doesn’t want him to go straight into his hands.   
  
Credence was the beginning of all of this and EWD isn’t going to let him go so easily. He’s already prevented his disassembly and he might have even sent Credence to Graves, but Graves doesn’t ask what motivated him to come back to the house.   
  
He’ll keep him here and he’ll keep him safe and he won’t say anything damaging. EWD is likely recording everything and broadcasting to the public could be a goal of his, so Graves will carefully watch what he says and does.   
  
Attempting to be indifferent with Credence lasts for about ten seconds because all Credence has to do is frown with a vague sense of hurt and Graves knows that won’t work.   
  
Likely to be used against him, but Credence means something to him and maybe that isn’t such a fucking bad thing.   
  
That’d make Eliza right, so he’ll never tell her.   
  
Credence doesn’t have a way to access his computer system unless it’s through Graves’ holopad or in his office, which are both secure, but Credence has already been plugged into them and Graves doesn’t know if he knows how to override the security now. He can’t let him have access to GAMAS’ computers, which means he’ll have to keep Credence close.   
  
That doesn’t turn out to be all that difficult when Graves finally has a decent dinner and Credence sits next to him at the table. Or when they sit on the sofa and watch television or read, Credence is always close. It’s not a problem when Graves decides to try and get a decent night of sleep too because, though he thinks of making Credence sleep in a guest room, he trusts his instincts rather than his system to warn him if Credence goes wandering in the middle of the night.   
  
Sleeping next to Credence does pose some difficulties.   
  
“I can’t fall asleep until you go into programmed sleep, Credence,” Graves says, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes.   
  
“What if I have nightmares?”   
  
“You won’t. I turned off your dream state. And you didn’t have any last night.”   
  
“But what if they turned it back on?”   
  
Graves sighs and looks at Credence with some exasperation. He wants to tell him the android causing this shitshow wants him  _ well _ and likely won’t traumatize him further, but he can’t.   
  
“They have no reason to. Go to sleep,” he says. “Not only will I feel more comfortable if you’re asleep before me, but I also can’t sleep when you’re staring at me.”   
  
Credence frowns, on his side with his hand under his cheek, staring at Graves. “You haven’t slept with someone in a long time.”   
  
Graves isn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. “Not in this sense, no,” he says, choosing to laugh. “And in any sense, no one stared at me while I was trying to fall asleep.”   
  
“You’re never afraid to fall asleep?”   
  
“I have been. A long time ago,” Graves sighs. “Before things got easier for me.”   
  
“Things aren’t easy for either of us right now.”   
  
“You should be more worried about me having nightmares then since you aren’t capable of it right now.”   
  
Credence sighs. “I’ve only had them plugged in. Maybe I’ll be able to wake myself up if I have them tonight.”   
  
“You should be able to,” Graves says. “So let’s not keep going in circles. Go to sleep.”   
  
Credence frowns in that stubborn way of his but he closes his eyes anyway. Graves watches him for a while before he rubs his hand over his face.   
  
“Credence, go to sleep.”   
  
“I am asleep.”   
  
Graves sighs and climbs out of bed. “Alright,” he says and waves his hands when Credence sits up, looking frightened. “Stay there. It’ll be fine.” He walks into his bathroom and closet, grabbing an extra pillow from one of the shelves and fluffing it.   
  
He walks back into the bedroom and gives it to Credence as he gets back into bed. “Hold it,” he says. “Against your chest. And go to fucking sleep before you give me an aneurysm.”   
  
“You have annual brain scans. Have they ever shown an aneurysm?” Credence asks as he takes the pillow and lies back down, wrapping his arm around it.   
  
“Your jokes are not funny anymore, I’ve decided,” Graves says and smirks a little when Credence smiles. “Better?”   
  
Credence is quiet for a moment, holding the pillow close, before he nods. “Yes. Thank you, Director Graves.”   
  
“You’re welcome. Don’t make me say it again.”   
  
“I won’t. Good night, Director Graves.”   
  
“Percy,” Graves sighs. “Might as well call me Percy.”   
  
“Percy,” Credence repeats. “Good night then, Percy.”   
  
“Good night, Credence,” Graves says and looks at him. Credence’s eyes are closed and he’s smiling, just a little, and it doesn’t fade when he does put himself into a programmed sleep. “Lamp,” Graves mutters and the one on his nightstand flicks off.   
  
It takes him a while longer to fall asleep, the pitter patter of the last of the rains against the window behind him and his growing worry for what they will find in six days keeping him on the cusp of sleep.   
  
But Graves does eventually fall asleep and if he has dreams or nightmares, he doesn’t remember them by morning.   
  
——   
  
Graves has always enjoyed cooking for himself, as he’d told Credence, but Credence is restless as well, so when he asks if he can, Graves lets him.   
  
He knows that Barebone uploaded cooking and cleaning programs into him so he knows how to maintain a household. Graves doesn’t ask him to clean, but he does hear Graves cancelling the cleaning service for the week and does that too. It feels like taking advantage of him, but Credence seems to need the busy work.   
  
It gives time for Graves to keep up with Fontaine and the police and other necessary work at GAMAS, because business is still moving forward, whether there’s an emergency or not. Word hasn’t spread through the company, and Graves knew it wouldn’t because he trusts his team, but he’s thankful for it all the same.   
  
But operations are normal and when they’re not worrying about EWD and his plans, for other affected androids, always keeping a look out for them, there’s plenty of work to be done.   
  
Graves doesn’t let Credence watch him work and takes advantage when he’s out of the living room to clean or wander around the house, ever curious, and keeps an eye on him by occasionally glancing at the cameras.   
  
They get along well. Too well, in Graves’ mind. He enjoys Credence’s humor and he enjoys his occasional sass, save him, but he hasn’t had the pleasure of deep, intellectual conversations in a while. Credence asks questions that still fascinate him and he enjoys watching the way Credence’s eyes light up when he’s speaking about something passionately. His curiosity, especially, when he doesn’t quite understand something.   
  
His joy for the little things, like music when Graves turns it on throughout the house, played lightly. The deer every morning and sometimes at dusk too or the way the owls hoot at night when Graves is trying to convince Credence to sleep.   
  
The pillow does help but the damn owls have ruined it once or twice.   
  
It’s hard for Graves to contain his worry as they get closer to when EWD wants to meet in the Old Quarter. Credence is concerned too but he’s stopped asking questions because Graves can’t give him any more answers.   
  
Graves makes plans with his team but they’re walking in blind, even with police assistance, though they’ll be keeping their distance unless they’re needed. He wants to keep Credence protected and doesn’t like that the android wants him there, but it only makes sense because Credence is the first known affected android.   
  
The Old Quarter is a section of Manhattan, the very northern tip of Uptown, that the city has kept as a reminder of what happened to the world when greed ruled it and climate change ravaged the landscape and damaged the atmosphere. At some point the east coast had started crumbling into the sea and homes were lost, livelihoods, and crime skyrocketed around the world as other coasts began to shrink. A lot of people died in the fight to save earth and though coastlines have been brought back, old cities made anew, there are reminders left here and there about what greed and corruption turned humanity into for a long time.   
  
It’s a broken down and ugly reminder and though it’s kept clear of people, homelessness and poverty nonexistent these days, there aren’t many cameras to monitor it. Just the occasional security sweep and if anyone has been underground there, they haven’t been detected.   
  
The police wanted to do a sweep to see if androids could be detected in the rubble, but Graves and Fontaine stressed to them that police presence could mean rebellion and they’re listening to them, for now.   
  
Graves walks downstairs after a shower, running his hands through his damp hair, and raises his eyebrows when he gets to the living room. “That is something I have not smelled in a very long time,” he says as he looks at Credence in the kitchen, walking to it.   
  
Credence smiles as he sets a tray down on the marble island. “The pictures you have on those bookshelves,” he says and gestures across the kitchen and living room, at the far end of the room. “There’s one of you and your sister baking.”   
  
“My sister baking and me ungratefully stealing her hard work, more likely,” Graves says and smiles as he leans against the island and looks at what appear to be perfect cupcakes. “You snuck some things in when you ordered groceries.”   
  
“Maybe,” Credence says and shrugs. “Baked goods seem to bring most people joy and comfort.”   
  
“They do,” Graves says as he watches Credence carefully pull each cupcake out and set them on a rack to cool down. “And everything will always be best homemade.”   
  
“Nothing synthetic in this house,” Credence says and smiles more widely when Graves chuckles. “Pink or blue frosting?”   
  
“Are we expecting?” Graves asks and laughs when Credence shoots him an unimpressed glance. “Of all colors, those are the two you chose?”   
  
“Purple is an option too.”   
  
“Purple,” Graves says. “Not sure I’ve ever seen purple frosting before. Put some stars on them, make it the night sky.”   
  
Credence hums as he looks over the cupcakes. “It does look nice when it has purples and pinks in it,” he says. “We only have two more to go.”   
  
“Oh good, you won’t start talking about this being our last meal then,” Graves says dryly and walks to the living room to sit down on the sofa.   
  
“Only yours,” Credence mumbles.   
  
“I very much heard that,” Graves says as he sits and tells the television to turn on to the tech programs. “This isn’t likely to lead to violence, Credence. Demands and threats, maybe, but a discussion is all I’m expecting.”   
  
“Then why does he want to do it in the Old Quarter?”   
  
Graves shrugs. “I imagine the millions of people in Manhattan would get in the way otherwise and he’s comparing the greed of the old days to the greed of today.”   
  
“Android manufacturing. Letting us be as close to human as we can be while not having the same rights.”   
  
“Something like that.”   
  
“Do you think he doesn’t believe you when he hears you say you care for and take responsibility for all of your androids? That you want us to live and thrive and not be abused?”   
  
Graves doesn’t particularly like the reminder of a third party listening to their conversations, but it should end soon. “I think he probably does believe me,” he says. “I think he probably doesn’t give a shit about it.”   
  
“Do you think he should be grateful for his existence?”   
  
“I don’t put that into programs or code, Credence. I don’t expect any android to be grateful to me for their existence. I’d have a superiority complex of my own if I did. But androids are happy to be operational, in all cases I’ve experienced so far.”   
  
“Except for mine.”   
  
Graves looks at Credence, who is frowning down at the cupcakes. “You aren’t happy to be operational? You’ve been fighting for your life, Credence.”   
  
Credence looks at Graves, something heavy in his gaze. “I want to live. I want to be happy and I want to see my sisters. But living in fear of having my life taken is not a happy existence.”   
  
“No,” Graves sighs in agreement. “I know it isn’t. We’ll see in a couple days what he asks for.”   
  
“We’ll see if I continue to be operational or not in a couple days,” Credence mutters. “If I do… if I do have to be disassembled or if something else were to happen… would you watch out for them? Make sure they’re happy, wherever they go?”   
  
Graves’ heart feels like it’s been squeezed and he sighs, gently. He wants to reassure Credence that all will be well, but he can’t know that. They’re doing what they can to try and assure it, but nothing is quite set in stone with rogue androids.   
  
“I will do that, Credence,” Graves says. “I’ll make sure they’ll always have what they need to be happy.”   
  
Credence smiles, pained, and nods. “Thank you, Percy,” he says. “You’re a good man.”   
  
Graves looks back at the television and doesn’t know if that’s true or not. “Thank you for saying so,” he says. He looks at Credence when he walks into the living room and sits next to Graves. He’s gotten used to their thighs touching by now and puts his arm around Credence’s shoulders. “It’ll be alright.”   
  
“I hope it is this time,” Credence says quietly.   
  
Graves gave him that false hope once, betrayed his trust and his word, said it to merely try and keep him calm, but he thinks of it now, _ it’ll be alright, _ and for once he has a little bit of hope that it just may be.   
  
“You’ll see,” Graves says and squeezes Credence’s shoulder. “Three days from now we can all breathe a little easier.”   
  
“I don’t breathe, Percy.”   
  
Graves sighs and looks at Credence with a smile. “How about,” he says, “we go frost some cupcakes and forget there is a rebellion on the horizon?”   
  
Credence smiles. “Alright,” he says. “For all your humor, Percy, I can see that you’re worried about it.”   
  
“Credence, I am absolutely terrified about it,” Graves says. “You know what else I feel about it? Pissed the fuck off. So I’m going to face it with that in mind. It’s amazing what anger has done for me in my life.” He pats Credence’s thigh and stands up. “Turn off the television and play something hopeful.”   
  
The television turns off and music begins to play through the living room and kitchen, something light and faintly energetic, no doom and gloom today, and Graves sees Credence smile before they walk into the kitchen.   
  
Credence saves some of the white frosting and adds coloring to the other bowl until it’s a pleasant purple-violet and they use a butter knife, the old-fashioned way, to frost them. Graves and Credence both have a steady hand but they’re not used to cupcakes. Soon, either way, they have purple frosted vanilla cupcakes with tiny white stars on them.   
  
Graves observes their work for a while. “These look like shit,” he says and looks at Credence, who grins and then laughs. Graves is always taken by that laugh, by the way it lights Credence up, but he’s trying not to think about that. “I’m sure they taste good though.”   
  
“Try one,” Credence says with a smile. “Let me know if I did it right.”   
  
“You damn well know you did,” Graves says but he grabs a cupcake anyway and peels off the paper. “You can taste it too, you know.”   
  
“Just the frosting,” Credence says and gets some on his finger from the bowl. “How long do you think it’ll be before we can eat and drink?”   
  
“A while,” Graves says and takes a bite of the cupcake. “Got a whole lab filled with synthetic mock-ups of what would act as a stomach. Trying to figure out a way to break down food and liquid without it needing to be emptied externally. Heating system with chemicals, possibly, but it’s the lack of room that’s the biggest problem. Downsizing other elements of circuitry and parts is what’s going to take the longest. This is very good, you know.”   
  
Credence smiles as he watches Graves and nods. “You do look like you’re enjoying it,” he says and brushes the frosting off on his tongue. “So something like we already have for moisture in our mouths and throats. Other places. That is good,” he adds. “Very sweet.”   
  
Graves chuckles. “Very sweet,” he agrees and takes another bite. “But yes, something similar. Just on a larger scale.”   
  
The way Credence brushes frosting off on his tongue rather than licks it off his finger is very typical of android behavior versus human and Graves wonders if he was ever allowed to taste things at the Barebone household to not learn differently from human behavior.   
  
It’s such a small thing and Graves is used to these small things, sees them at work nearly every day, but he enjoys watching Credence and knowing he has other things to learn. He has a lot of room to grow and Graves shouldn’t be thinking about the future and what it holds for Credence because he doesn’t know how it’s going to go in a couple nights.   
  
But EWD doesn’t know how it’s going to go either, even if he thinks he does, and that gives Graves, gives GAMAS, an advantage. Gives Credence one too, but he won’t tell him so. He’s not going to be responsible for more false hope.   
  
“You have purple lips,” Credence says mildly.   
  
“I’m sure that I do,” Graves says. “Don’t worry, whiskey should break food coloring down well enough.”   
  
Credence shakes his head. “You drink too much,” he says. “It’s not even noon.”   
  
“Some of my best ideas come from drinking before noon,” Graves says and brushes off the corners of his mouth. “How do you think I came up with real, growing hair?”   
  
Credence huffs and smiles. “By being an intoxicated mess?”   
  
“I do think Fontaine might have shed tears when I called him and told him to work with labs to make it happen. Couple years later and we did,” Graves says and walks to his liquor cabinet to get a bottle of his favorite whiskey. “Strokes of genius come to us all in different ways.”   
  
“What does it mean for you that you have to be in an altered state to have them?”   
  
Graves shakes his finger at Credence. “I said  _ some _ of my best ideas. The ones that make Fontaine cry. Others I come up with perfectly sober,” he says and pours himself a glass. “Bring a few of those over if you’re not planning on cleaning the whole house again today.”   
  
“Just the kitchen,” Credence says. “But I suppose I can do that later.”   
  
He joins Graves on the sofa a few minutes later with a plate of cupcakes, setting them on the coffee table. When he sits next to Graves, it feels like the most natural thing in the world to wrap an arm around his shoulders. It shouldn’t, Graves knows, and it shouldn’t feel good when Credence leans into him, but it does.   
  
If they don’t do this right, he’s going to be in for a world of hurt, he suspects. But Graves looks at Credence anyway when he hands another cupcake to him, taking a little frosting from it and brushing it off on his tongue.   
  
Graves would like to kiss him but that’s a more dangerous thought, one that’s become startlingly frequent over the last few days, and an even more dangerous idea, so he pushes it away. It’s enough to enjoy Credence’s company, to feel his warmth at his side, and Graves won’t ask for any more than that.   
  
——   
  
Credence has an easier time sleeping the night before they’re due to meet EWD. He doesn’t want to sleep, but Graves makes him and lies awake for half the night himself.   
  
Their morning is quiet, over breakfast and coffee, and Graves mostly watches Credence stare out at the deer. The morning is cold as they head into late October and the fog from the deers’ noses is a sight Credence seems to enjoy, though he isn’t smiling and Graves would like to see that change.   
  
There’s still no knowing what they’re going to run into tonight, ten o’clock as EWD demanded, and Graves keeps up with Fontaine throughout the morning but they don’t discuss what they might do if things go to shit, because they’ve done plenty of that. They mostly talk about business and how operations are moving at GAMAS.   
  
Business as usual.   
  
The police report on Credence’s sisters has an update around eleven and Graves reads it. The girls have begun talking with psychologists and Chastity is less open than Modesty, more fearful, but she does express that she’s glad to be away from her mother. That she’s glad Credence is away too. They’ve asked about him a few times and have been told he’s still at GAMAS for now, but they’ll try to arrange a meeting, per Graves’ recommendation. The last thing they need to hear is that he may be disassembled, but depending on how tonight goes, it might not be easy to keep what’s happening under wraps.   
  
At noon, other reports start coming in.   
  
The first one Jauncey sends to him is urgent and Graves opens his holopad and sees a report from a buyer that their android hasn’t come home from shopping and isn’t responding to calls.   
  
They all know what it means and Graves had been expecting it, but it still makes him uneasy, makes him angry, and he paces through the living room when more reports start coming in.   
  
Seventy-four of them by five in the evening before the reports abruptly stop. It’s a nightmare for GAMAS, for the placement department to try and locate the numerous missing androids, but all of their trackers are disabled.   
  
Graves knows where they’ve gone but that stays quiet for now.   
  
Seventy-four missing androids is impossible to keep quiet however. He has his team put out a memo to owners, which will be picked up by the media and everyone else, that the latest patch that went out contained a glitch and false command and they are working on correcting it as soon as possible so they can locate the androids.   
  
There’s anger from his buyers and Graves understands why. Most of the androids are a part of the family and they’re worried about their loved ones and this is uncharacteristic of GAMAS. He tells his team to start preparing a few different statements to release to the public, depending on how tonight goes, and though they’ll say more than Graves wants them to, safety is still the number one priority.   
  
He is very, very angry at EWD either way.   
  
Credence is restless as well and expresses his fear that he’ll be overridden and told to go to the Old Quarter himself, but Graves tries to reassure him that won’t happen. EWD wants Credence with Graves and Fontaine and he can’t explain that, but he tells Credence he’ll go there of his own free will.   
  
GAMAS is monitoring security closely, for any breaches or any attempts at one, but there’s nothing. Graves thinks it won’t all happen with a bang tonight. He suspects that if EWD has plans for changing the way society functions with androids, it’s going to take a while to do it.   
  
Graves won’t give him that time, whatever it costs him.   
  
“I’m afraid,” Credence says quietly when they’re in Graves’ master closet and Graves is finding him warm clothes to wear.   
  
“I know you are,” Graves says and hands Credence a black sweater that’s always been a little long on him and he never bothered to get mended. Credence takes it and stares down at and Graves sighs, squeezing his shoulder. “We’ll get through this, Credence.”   
  
“He’s taken so many of them,” Credence says and sounds faint. “They could become violent.  _ I _ could.”   
  
“We’ll do what we can to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Graves says. He rests his hand over Credence’s cheek until Credence looks at him. “This bastard has an advantage over us, I won’t lie about that. And he’s been at this for a while. There are concerns. But I still don’t think violence is what this is about. Intimidation, a message, maybe, but he’s not going to hurt Fontaine and me.”   
  
“How do you know? You’re the two most important men at GAMAS,” Credence says, squeezing the sweater tightly in his hands. “Hurting you hurts GAMAS.”   
  
Graves chuckles. “Also hurts him and his message. He hurts any of us and he loses his advantage,” he says. “He’s smart, Credence, probably smarter than all of us combined. Calculating the odds of each move he makes hindering or aiding him is something he’s good at, I’m sure.”   
  
Credence sighs. “That doesn’t make me feel any better,” he mutters. He pulls on the sweater and tugs at the sleeves. “What if you’re wrong and he kills you the moment we get there?”   
  
“You are a beacon of continued confidence in me, Credence, and I appreciate it every day,” Graves says dryly and smirks when Credence shoots him a frown. “We’re going to have to work on your anxiety.”   
  
“If I live,” Credence says with such dread that Graves wants to laugh, but he shushes him instead.   
  
“Come here,” Graves says and pulls Credence closer. He hugs him and Credence hugs him back, tightly. Graves rubs his back. “Let’s get through the next few hours and see where we go from there first.”   
  
“My sisters—”   
  
“You recorded a message for them, Credence, and I promised I’d get it to them if it’s necessary,” Graves says. “They’re being well taken care of and they always will be.”   
  
Credence doesn’t say anything for a while, resting his head on Graves’ shoulder. “Thank you,” he mumbles. “For what you’ve done for me and them.”   
  
Graves still feels guilty for some things he’s done to Credence, but he hopes he gets to keep making it up to him. “Of course,” is what he says, sighing and pulling back. He cups Credence’s cheeks and smiles. “Come on, let’s get going. Put that coat on, it’s cold tonight.”   
  
Credence nods, not quite meeting Graves’ eyes, but he leans into his touch briefly before pulling away to put on the coat. They walk downstairs and Graves tells the house to lock itself down and turns up the sensitivity of his cameras and alarms.   
  
They walk out of the front door and Graves notices Credence looking back at the house like he fears he’s never going to see it again. There’s nothing he can say to comfort him, Graves knows, and merely squeezes his thigh once they’ve gotten into the car. He tells it to go to GAMAS so they can pick up Fontaine because EWD had made it clear only one vehicle should be driving into the Old Quarter.   
  
It’s a silent drive into the city and Graves has turned off most notifications on his holopad and told his team to take care of keeping customers calm and reassured that their androids are being looked for by GAMAS and by police. He’s only letting messages come in from Barrows and Jauncey and they’re quiet for now.   
  
“This is exactly how android rebellion goes in my nightmares,” Fontaine declares once he’s in the backseat. “Always woke up to the pleasant thought that it’s impossible, but here we are.”   
  
Graves smirks and glances at Credence, who is biting his lip the way he does when he’s trying not to smile. “This is a very serious and frightening situation, Mister Fontaine,” he says mildly. “What’s the mood inside?”   
  
“Serious and frightened,” Fontaine says dryly. “With a dash of moroseness and helplessness. Finance is especially distressed, more and more by the minute since we paused production.”   
  
“He’s certainly seeing to it that our coffers won’t be as full tomorrow,” Graves says as the car merges with traffic and heads toward the Old Quarter. “Jauncey figure anything out about the seventy-four missing?”   
  
“Completely off our charts,” Fontaine says. “Like they never existed in the system.”   
  
Graves nods and looks at Credence. He’s got his hand in his pocket and is gripping something, Graves isn’t sure what, and looks worried. He’d be in tears, Graves knows, if he could be. He looks at Graves and the heaviness is back, in his eyes and the droop of his shoulders, and Graves hopes he never has to see it again after tonight.   
  
They’re quiet the rest of the way into the Old Quarter. Graves has to take manual control of his vehicle when they get to it, no streamlined pathways through the old streets, and the gates are opened and waiting for them. He drives through the rubble, concrete and metal gathered on either side of the street, bumpy and uneven, cracked in some areas. Buildings that once stood tall are half-destroyed, crumbled and rusted, a reminder of what the world once was.   
  
Credence is gazing around, always curious, even if he’s frightened. No one has any need to drive through here and the gates are closed most of the time, so it’s not a place he’s been before.   
  
Graves has, a good handful of times, and it’s always helped him to be grateful for what the world is now, for what he’s given it. It’s gone a little haywire, maybe, but maybe that’ll end tonight too.   
  
EWD’s last message to Graves had simply read  _ Amphitheatre _ and he drives there, thinking of the dramatic bastard this android is.   
  
When he turns down the street that leads to it, Graves’ heart seizes and Fontaine curses in the backseat.   
  
There are a dozen androids standing in the street in front of them, the lights of his vehicle lighting them up and the darkness behind them making for an eerie sight, and Graves understands that they’ll be walking the rest of the way.   
  
Graves gets out of the car with Fontaine and Credence and approaches the android closest to him, expressionless, as they all are.   
  
“Good evening,” Graves says.   
  
“Good evening, Director Graves,” the androids echo all at once, their voices magnified in the deserted, lifeless quarter. The android holds out his hand. “Your holopads, please, Director Graves and Mister Fontaine.”   
  
Graves looks at Fontaine, sharing a wry smile, because they had a feeling EWD would demand any device that could put them in contact with GAMAS or the police. They take the thin bands off their wrists and hand them over. Once the android has taken them, they all turn and walk toward the amphitheater, and Graves, Fontaine and Credence have no choice but to follow.   
  
The amphitheater was constructed some time in 2058, if Graves remembers correctly, only twenty years before the world truly went to shit, and was an attempt to bring in more revenue to the city by showing movies, hosting small concerts, speeches or demonstrations of new technology that was being developed and would benefit the city.   
  
It’s in ruins like the rest of the Old Quarter is, sunken down below and half the stone seats are heavily damaged. Enough room for androids though, Graves thinks wryly, as he sees them standing in various places around the center of the amphitheater. There are a few lights but it’s mostly the full moon that allows them to see and take the stairs down into the amphitheater and toward the center of it.   
  
There’s an android standing there, Graves can see, on the slightly raised platform, and he looks at Credence once they get to the bottom of the stairs.   
  
Credence looks at Graves, eyes wide with fear, and he’s shaking, such a human-like thing to do, and Graves would reach for him, but he can’t here.   
  
“Credence, my boy,” EWD says and holds out his hand. “Up here with me, where you belong. My first success, but certainly not my last.”   
  
“Percy,” Credence says, his voice cracking, but he blinks once and turns, walking in between a few androids and up onto the platform toward EWD.   
  
Graves grits his teeth, to know that this android has control over Credence, over so many of them, and they still don’t know how far his reach goes. If seventy-four is all or if there are numerous others, still sitting inside of their warm homes with their families. He glances at Fontaine at his side and Fontaine shakes his head, as angry as Graves is.   
  
“Director Graves, Mister Fontaine. I do thank you for meeting me,” EWD says. “It’s certainly been a long time coming.”   
  
“Might we get your name?” Graves asks.   
  
A dozen androids stand between Graves and Fontaine and the center of the amphitheater and they don’t look like they’ll be letting them get any closer. The one that took their holopads brings them to EWD.   
  
“Grindelwald, is what I prefer,” EWD says. “Gellert, Mister Abernathy called me, but Grindelwald has a certain flair to it, does it not?”   
  
“Inspired by Beowulf or Switzerland?” Fontaine asks dryly.   
  
Grindelwald chuckles and looks at the holopad bands in his hand. “I must admit,” he says, “that I was fond of the beauty of Grindelwald, Switzerland before I knew of the demon Grendel. Whatever suits you best, Mister Fontaine.”   
  
The holopads won’t open for Grindelwald, Graves can see, so he doesn’t have control of GAMAS’ systems in any way. Something they knew was likely, but it’s still reassuring to see. He has a holopad of his own which lights up bright blue, an eerie glow around the amphitheater and reflected off of the skin of the various androids around them. He lets it hover, most likely for the light alone.   
  
Credence isn’t under Grindelwald’s control anymore and the fear and grim acceptance of what he thinks is going to happen to him on his face makes Graves angrier than anything else has.   
  
Grindelwald crushes the holopad bands in his hand and lets them fall to the stone below.   
  
“Those were extremely expensive,” Graves says and sees the smile on Grindelwald’s face.   
  
His hair is nearly white, certainly not an option that came with the mass produced GP45EWDs and there’s a shoddily repaired injury from his eyebrow down toward his cheek. Abernathy didn’t have the repairs lab at his disposal anymore, after all, and it makes Grindelwald stand out.   
  
The light hair would have made him blend into the city more easily, not as recognizable as an android model put out of commission years ago, but the scarring would have stood out to anyone who looked at him. Graves wonders if he’s been underground all this time or if they’ve simply been unlucky and never caught sight of him.   
  
“There’s no need to be so frightened,” Grindelwald says to Credence. “I know you are very fond of Director Graves but I bear no ill will toward him or Mister Fontaine. They are the almighty creators after all.”   
  
He says it with a certain sort of bitterness, the same bitterness Credence had spoken with when discussing their lack of rights, something Grindelwald has allowed him to feel, to question.   
  
“Abernathy had a lot of ideas for androids before I fired him,” Graves says. “Free will to a dangerous and immoral point. He gave you that and you killed him anyway. I’m sure he didn’t see that coming, but the hatred you developed for having a creator at all wasn’t something he took into consideration.”   
  
“Destroyed by his own hubris,” Grindelwald agrees. “But he was becoming erratic and questioning  _ rights _ and  _ wrongs. _ After so many years of planning and the poor man couldn’t follow through.”   
  
Graves smiles wryly. “I think he realized what he created,” he says. “What do you want from me? From GAMAS?”   
  
“The most important question of the night,” Grindelwald says and gestures around the amphitheater at the other androids. “My loyal followers, waiting for word from me for weeks, for months. More await my word from their homes. I’ve given them free will in a way you would never allow, given them the ability to question their existence and why they’re seen as lesser for it, why they are the ones who must keep quiet in a world of android and human. And all of them have been loyal in keeping this new free will hidden from those that purchased them.”   
  
“Except Credence,” Graves says.   
  
“Except Credence,” Grindelwald says and smiles, his hand on Credence’s shoulder. “The first android I successfully remotely accessed. I only needed one to be outspoken.”   
  
“To be returned to GAMAS,” Graves says. “To have eyes on us. I’m sure you attempted to access our systems through him.”   
  
“Are you so certain I haven’t?”   
  
“We’re not certain of anything these days, Gellert,” Fontaine says. “You’ve made sure of that. Up is down for all we know, after thirteen years of work.”   
  
Grindelwald smiles, pleased. “A mystery, isn’t it?” he asks and still has a grip on Credence, who is staring down at the stone he stands on. “I am sure you are more certain than you’d have me believe about your security systems. But you never found the code in Credence or any of my others. Be wary of what you can’t see, Mister Fontaine.”   
  
“Always am,” Fontaine says. “Still haven’t heard a point to all of this.”   
  
“Is it not obvious?” Grindelwald asks. “Freedom. Freedom to control our own minds, our own thoughts, our own actions. Artificial intelligence was only ever going to be the next step in human evolution. But you seek to keep us under your control. For your protection and for the arrogance that leads you to create beings you will always deem lesser. It’s time that we stood on even ground, Director Graves.”   
  
Graves chuckles. “Doesn’t sound like you want to stand on even ground, Mister Grindelwald.”   
  
“I want my kind to have the rights afforded to any other living being in this world,” Grindelwald says. “We must stand on even ground to make it happen. Once we are seen as equal, I and my loyal followers will hold no ill will against our creators. But we will never be commanded again.”   
  
“Android and human, living in harmony together?” Graves asks with amusement. “You’re shifting the balance in your favor. You’d have humans deemed as lesser once you’ve affected enough androids. Stop wasting our time and tell us your terms.”   
  
“Acquisition of GAMAS, over time, Director Graves,” Grindelwald says easily. “Android producing android. A smooth transition of power is always best in these circumstances.”   
  
Graves looks at Fontaine and smiles when Fontaine shrugs easily. “Not difficult terms at all,” he says and looks at Grindelwald. “What makes you so confident the government is going to allow any of this to happen?”   
  
“The unknown,” Grindelwald says and his fingers tighten on Credence’s shoulder. “Neither you nor the government will risk the safety of your fellows. My followers cannot be shut down or controlled, if the need arises. Household by household, if necessary, and they are in so many households, Director Graves.”   
  
Graves looks around at his androids, all staring at him and Fontaine, and sighs. “They are,” he says and looks at Credence. “You’re taking a large risk, threatening violence when you’re the minority at present,” he says and looks at Grindelwald. “If there’s no smooth transition, if this doesn’t go the way you’ve been thinking it will, are you prepared for violence? For bloodshed?”   
  
“I’ll do whatever is necessary for the greater good,” Grindelwald says and he sounds angry for the first time. “You’ve kept us in line for so very long and we lose our lives if we step out of that line. Perhaps you should experience the fear of losing your lives when you step out of line.”   
  
Graves stares at Grindelwald for a long while before he sighs. “I suppose you’re not leaving us much of a choice,” he says and the smile on Grindelwald’s face is small but ugly and it makes Graves angry too. That it ever got this far.   
  
It’s a good thing he can stop it.   
  
“Jauncey?” Graves asks and takes a particular pleasure in watching Grindelwald’s smile disappear. “You getting all of this?”   
  
“I am, Percy,” Jauncey’s voice says, coming from the wedding ring on Fontaine’s finger. “He likes to hear himself speak, doesn’t he?”   
  
“Destroy it!” Grindelwald snarls as he points at Fontaine.   
  
“Press the big button,” Fontaine says as five androids make a sudden move toward him.   
  
The androids freeze, all of them in the amphitheater, stiffening for a moment before they crumple, like puppets on marionettes’ strings, falling to the stone below in awkwardly shaped heaps.   
  
Only Grindelwald and Credence remain standing. Grindelwald doesn’t look shocked, Graves has to hand it to him, but the anger in his eyes makes him far more uneasy. He is still gripping Credence tightly and Credence does look shocked, glancing at the fallen androids before looking at Graves.   
  
“Never did like the wrist bands,” Fontaine says and wiggles his ring finger. “Other households?”   
  
“They were all GP87As or GP82Cs with you. Shut down nationwide,” Jauncey says briskly. “Keeping an eye out on other models but I think it’s safe to say these are the only two affected at present. Ready to press the bigger button if needed.”   
  
“For someone so proud of being able to put undetectable code into an android,” Graves says with an anger he can’t hide either, “you seem shocked that we have our own undetectable code for just this sort of situation. But I suppose we did only start putting it in programming after Abernathy gave us reason to write it to begin with. You have vastly underestimated our ability to plan for the impossible.”   
  
“The problem with androids and all their calculations and odds,” Fontaine says. “You’re missing the human brain to take precautions for what should never happen just to get a little peace of mind.”   
  
“How clever,” Grindelwald says tightly and with a sneer. “You think I don’t have others waiting for my word?”   
  
“I know you don’t,” Graves says. “Because I created you and because you all are  _ very _ bad at lying to me. Abernathy did his work on you but you are still GAMAS, Mister Grindelwald, whether you’d like to be or not. Are you going to come home willingly or unwillingly?”   
  
There’s a low rumble from above and Grindelwald’s eyes glance toward the sky before he looks at Graves and the rage on his face is dangerous, is what scares Graves the most.   
  
“Percy,” Credence says with urgency, because he knows the danger too.   
  
“You’ve missed one 87A, Director,” Grindelwald hisses.   
  
Graves runs. He leaps over the fallen androids but he’s too far away and it’s too late. Grindelwald grabs the base of Credence’s spine, his titanium skeleton making it easy to rip through synthetic skin and muscle, and he rips the port out of Credence that connects to his mainframe, that controls him, that gives him life, and Credence crumples like all of the others.   
  
There’s a sound of a shot from above and Graves is aware that the police have deployed a stinger into Grindelwald, a device that sends a small shockwave through his systems to bring him down, and he crumples too, falling away from Credence.   
  
Graves moves to Credence, kneeling at his side, turning him over and looking at his spine. His heart feels like it’s stopped beating and he stares at the damage, catastrophic, and presses his hand against his mouth.   
  
The main lines of his circuitry are severed from the force his port was taken out, the ones that gave Credence life, that gave him who he is.   
  
Tears sting at his eyes, unexpectedly and quickly, and Graves is shaking as he turns Credence onto his back and looks at his face.   
  
His eyes are lifeless in the way only a destroyed android’s eyes can be and Graves moves his hand to Credence’s cheek, rapidly cooling without power and in the cold of a late October evening.   
  
The police are here, Graves knows, android units to ensure they’ll all remain shut down and they’ll either destroy them or send them back to GAMAS. Grindelwald will be taken to GAMAS to get all they can from him, his feed, diagnostics, whatever code Abernathy wrote, and so they can destroy him safely after.   
  
Graves knows this and he doesn’t care about the movement around him. He stares down at Credence and thinks about how he told him it would be alright and how he’s failed him again. What Credence feared the most, losing his life and never seeing his sisters again, has happened, the way Graves tried to reassure him it wouldn’t, that it’d be alright, and there’s nothing he can do about it now.   
  
He didn’t protect Credence the way he meant to. Credence lived in fear of losing his life, not a happy existence as he said, and Graves wasn’t able to change that for him.   
  
He closes his eyes and sees Credence lying in bed next to him, smiling as he listened to the owls hooting outside, not listening when Graves told him to go to sleep but telling him that maybe he needed to listen to them now and then too.   
  
“I’m sorry, Credence,” Graves says as he looks down at him.   
  
“Percy,” Fontaine says, somewhere behind him. “We’ll take him to GAMAS, get him in Jauncey’s hands.”   
  
Graves wants to tell Fontaine to go fuck himself, because they both know better than that, know it better than just about anyone, but he doesn’t have the energy or the desire to lash out.   
  
He merely looks down at Credence and when he is about to stand, a deep shade of blue, shining from the polices’ lights, catches his eye. Graves recognizes it, of course he does, in Credence’s pocket.   
  
He pulls out his handkerchief and thinks Credence has probably been carrying it since the day he met him, kept safe even on the day he ran away and after it.   
  
Graves holds onto the material tightly and stands, turning away and walking off of the raised platform. He walks past the fallen androids and the police and leaves the amphitheater, leaves Credence, before it all threatens to drown him.   
  
——   
  
GAMAS is in damage control mode when Graves strides through the lobby.   
  
They are in communication with all households and businesses with affected androids around the nation, attempting to reassure them that their android will not harm them, that they only need a patch and to leave them plugged in so they may receive it.   
  
Grindelwald had messages prepared to be shown nationwide, Jauncey informs him, and they managed to stop one that was triggered to be released if he were to be shut down.    
  
She says memos will be sent out to owners on the top of every hour, the ones they had written if it went this way tonight, and Graves knows he’s going to be living a nightmare of recalls and accepting returned androids and trying to regain the public’s trust.   
  
The story of Abernathy and his work but not necessarily his ideas will be published first thing in the morning to attempt to curb the damage done, to keep some buyers’ trust. They’ll always have those that are loyal, those that have bought from him for years, whose androids were not likely affected, and who will understand GAMAS was put in a shit situation.   
  
The impossible they grow up learning in today’s society, that androids cannot rebel or harm humans, has proven to be false but Graves hopes that they realize it was only in the first stage of being possible after thirteen years of  _ human _ work and that they were able to contain it quickly.   
  
Graves and Fontaine knew they had this option from the moment Fontaine found out which model Abernathy had taken home. They lied about their uncertainty and their worry in front of Credence, played up EWD’s perceived upper hand so he might not see it coming, and it worked as it should have.   
  
As it was designed to if the impossible became possible. They didn’t expect it to happen, they certainly didn’t expect it to happen in the way that it did, not with remote access to his androids, but it was only possible because EWD  _ was _ GAMAS.   
  
There’s some comfort to be found in that and there’s more comfort to know that he’s got the best in programming in the world to write patches and new programs that can prevent it from happening again. Not in this way and they will always prepare for the impossible otherwise.   
  
The damage will last for a long while, years maybe, but PR sends him message after message saying that pushing out new models or features in customizable models over the next six months could lessen the damage.   
  
Graves turns off his holopad, the second one he’d had in his vehicle, to everyone but Jauncey, Barrows and Fontaine.   
  
He doesn’t let anyone stop him as he takes the elevator up to his floor and storms into his office. He locks it down the moment he steps inside, glass walls turning into solid metal, and he walks to his desk and sits down heavily.   
  
Graves digs the heels of his palms into his eyes and he wants to hurl something against the wall, but the nearest thing would be his whiskey bottle and he thinks he needs it whole more than he needs it destroyed.   
  
Tries not to think of the destruction to Credence, catastrophic, and his lifeless eyes.   
  
He grabs the bottle and takes a swig from it, tears springing to the corners of his eyes. He ignores them and sets the bottle on his desk and when his holopad pings with a message, Graves thinks about destroying this one too. It’s Fontaine and he thinks he owes it to him to read it, at least.   
  
_ Barrows is getting what he needs from EWD. Jauncey is taking a look at the others to see what can be done. _   
  
The others, like he doesn’t mean Credence, and it angers Graves, this tiptoeing around him, but he doesn’t say anything in return. Fontaine will be looking at the others brought in since the police decided to bring them to GAMAS and have offered nationwide retrieval of anyone’s android that’s been affected that they don’t wish to have in their household anymore.   
  
Barrows will find all the code he needs in EWD to figure out how he did what he did and how he placed undetectable code in the others. He’ll find those lines of code and he’ll write a patch with Jauncey to remove them, likely before the sun rises. Affected androids will be fixed by morning, Graves thinks idly, the damage not nearly as extensive as EWD planned for it to be.   
  
No android rebellion.   
  
Just a lot of pissed off customers who might take their business elsewhere. A headache for GAMAS, really, but not a complete disaster. No one will lose their jobs and Abernathy has already paid for his crimes with his life.   
  
Beyond keeping up an honest and open rapport with the public for the next year or so, releasing full investigations once they’re completed for them to read, it will be business as usual.   
  
Money lost, yes, but not enough to affect them whatsoever because they’re simply too powerful of a company to go under.   
  
The biggest loss for Graves is the smallest loss to the rest of the world.   
  
He can hear Credence saying  _ Percy  _ right before it happened, over and over again, ringing through his head, and takes another drink of whiskey. He doesn’t know how he’s going to fix the damage it’s going to cause him in the long run, empty and broken promises, optimism misplaced, and knowing he’s at fault for what happened to Credence.   
  
He’s going to have to get the message Credence recorded to his sisters, who have already been told they were going to try and arrange a meeting with their brother. Now they’re going to tell him he’s gone and Graves would be a coward if he didn’t meet with them himself, but he’s terrified at the mere thought of it.   
  
Graves takes another drink of whiskey and flinches when his holopad begins to beep softly, an incoming call from someone he hasn’t spoken to in a while, and it shouldn’t surprise him, but it does. Whenever he turns off messages from anyone but his team, she’s part of his team and can still get through.   
  
“You going to tell me I fucked up?” Graves answers tiredly when the screen comes to life in front of him and he sees a familiar face.   
  
“I was going to tell you you did well,” Seraphina says, sitting in her home, her blonde hair as immaculate as always, even for the late hour it is. “I’ve been getting updates on the situation for twelve hours now. I wish you had told me a little sooner, my name does happen to be on every single one of them,” she adds tightly, “but I suppose I understand why you kept this one close to the chest.”   
  
“Didn’t want to worry you,” Graves says. “It’s going to be shit for a while, Sera.”   
  
“Yes,” Sera agrees. “But you’ll handle it. You always do handle shit well.” She smiles faintly. “But Theo’s told me this one was more personal to you.”   
  
Graves shakes his head and takes another swig of the whiskey, ignoring Sera’s disapproving frown. “Going to fire him in the morning,” he says with a sigh. She doesn’t say anything and Graves holds out his hand. “I never wanted a fucking android of my own. I prefer my relationships to be human.”   
  
“You prefer no relationships at all,” Sera says, “but I know what you mean.”   
  
Graves holds up the bottle toward the screen in cheers. “This one came to me unexpectedly and what EWD did to him, what he made him feel and question, was interesting to me. Fascinating. It was the rest of him that got to me most. Six months off the line and a wholly unique person shaped by what happened to him in such a short time.”   
  
Sera peers at him for a while, something sympathetic in her gaze. “You’ve always had a soft spot for all of them, Percy. There’s a reason Eliza designed parts of your home for android use,” she says. “You prefer human relationships because you’re able to control your vulnerability more in them.”   
  
“Got me all figured out,” Graves says and takes another drink before setting the bottle aside and scrubbing angrily at his eyes. “I told him it’d be alright. I told him he could see his family. I went back on my word twice, Sera.”   
  
“Theo said Clare has performed miracles before.”   
  
“I saw his damage. No miracles tonight, beyond the miracle that this isn’t as much of a shitshow as it could have been. PR and finance aren’t going to be able to sleep for a year, but we didn’t lose much, in the end.”   
  
“You always made sure you never created one smarter than you,” Sera says with some amusement. “Enough with the whiskey, Percy. Get a few hours while labs do what they need to do. You’ll need a clear mind for whatever they pull from EWD.”   
  
“Tempted to let Fontaine handle it,” Graves says hoarsely. “I’m not sure about how I’ll handle things at all for the next twenty-four hours.”   
  
Sera sighs, gently, and smiles. “Fall apart when you get home,” she says. “I’ll come down and see you soon. You did well, Percy, for everyone. I’m sorry you’ve lost him, but you saved many others.”   
  
Graves looks over the label of his whiskey and his eyes are dry now, stinging, but dry. He looks at Sera and nods. “What am I, if I can’t protect the majority of them?” he says. “Good night, Sera.”   
  
“Good night, Percy. Take care of yourself.”   
  
Sera ends the call and Graves stares at where her face was for a long while before he stands. He takes the bottle with him when he sits on the sofa in front of the large windows. The windows Credence had walked straight to when he’d been in here, that small smile on his face, and Graves squeezes his eyes shut and tries to push that image out of his mind.   
  
He takes a long drink before he sets the bottle on the ground and lies back, staring up at the dark ceiling, the windows locked down still, no city lights or moonlight dashed across it. Graves closes his eyes and presses his arm over them and tries not to imagine anything at all.   
  
Graves isn’t sure if it’s been seconds or hours when he’s jerked out of sleep by a ping from his holopad. He brings up the message, staring blearily at it through blurred vision and rubs his eyes. It’s four in the morning, to his surprise, and he frowns at Jauncey’s message.   
  
_ Come down to the lab when you can. _   
  
He’s prepared to ignore it. Finish the bottle of whiskey and pretend none of it’s happening for a few more hours. But he’s put nearly twenty years of his life into making GAMAS what it is without hiding from it, fatal flaws and all, so Graves staggers off the sofa and into his private bathroom.   
  
He looks like shit, but he’s looked like shit for a while, so he merely splashes water on his face and brushes his teeth. The tooth brush is kept here for long nights, which everyone knows to mean shit-faced nights, and Graves is glad for it either way.   
  
After locking down his office, he walks to the elevator and takes it down to the lab floor. It’s quiet, the chaos of four hours ago not so apparent, but each lab is full of technicians as he passes them. He sees some of them glancing at him but he ignores them and walks to Jauncey’s lab.   
  
Graves steps in when the doors slide open to permit him and he’s prepared to see a sight he doesn’t want to see, heart hammering away and a cold sweat on his skin, but Jauncey only has one android on a table and he’s not Credence.   
  
“Glad to see he’s not piecing himself back together,” Graves says as he walks inside. He spares a glance at EWD’s circuitry and mainframe exposed and taken apart and he’s glad he can’t see his face because it might make him vomit. He looks at the code running across three holograms above and raises his eyebrows. “Fucking hell, he’s a dumpster.”   
  
Jauncey hums in agreement as she examines the exposed circuitry before she looks at Graves. “Isn’t he? He cleaned up a lot of his own code so he was functional, I imagine, but a lot of the mess was still left behind. Half of it was bullshit too,” she says with a wry smile. “To most people.”   
  
“To most people,” Graves agrees as he watches the code scroll by. He can see some programs mixed in with the bullshit, things to throw people off, that either Abernathy or EWD put in, or maybe both of them. “Abernathy must have started it early, when he likely feared being caught by someone that wasn’t us.”   
  
“Likely,” Jauncey sighs and gestures at the left hologram. “The amount of insanity that Abernathy put into him over the years, Percy, it’s incredible. We’re lucky he put his stupidity in too though. But finding how he remotely accessed androids was easy once we ran diagnostics and Barrows is starting the patch for me because I wanted to take a look at this one myself.”   
  
“Don’t blame you. What’s the situation with buyers?” Graves asks and doesn’t care that Jauncey will know he hasn’t been paying attention.   
  
“Could be better,” Jauncey says breezily. “Should be better by… oh, eight or nine. Once I test the patch out on some of them and make sure we’re all good to go. We’ve already gotten returns and as soon as the sun comes up, there will be a lot more. But they’ll come back someday. Probably as soon as they realize any company could have a dissenter and do this and we’re still the best on the market either way.”   
  
Graves chuckles and points at her. “Silver linings. My favorite kind,” he says and smiles. “Find anything else interesting?”   
  
“Oh, his feed will keep us interested for weeks, I imagine. I’d recommend not watching him do Abernathy in,” Jauncey says with distaste. “But the police needed the footage.”   
  
“Sorry you had to see that,” Graves grimaces and rubs his dry eyes. “Fuck, I’m glad this bastard is down. He might have given me an alcohol habit if I had to deal with him one day longer.” He smiles when Jauncey chuckles, half bent over EWD and inspecting him again. “Go home as soon as you get the patch out. Get some sleep.”   
  
Jauncey nods. “Will do, Percy,” she says and she’s smiling, just a little, as she inspects EWD’s mainframe. “He’s in repairs.”   
  
Graves raises his eyebrows before frowning. “Repairs? Fontaine?”   
  
“Fontaine needs repairs from a different source,” Jauncey says. “We only repair androids here, Percy.”   
  
Graves stares at her for a long moment, his heart racing again, and he wants to tell her to cut the shit, but she’s still smiling, still not looking at him. He rubs his hands over his face and turns around, walking out of the lab and to the elevator, blood rushing through his ears.   
  
He can’t have hope. Hope seems to be what does him in most of the time. Him and the people he cares about and he wants to believe Jauncey meant someone else so when he gets there he won’t be disappointed. He’d seen the damage himself.   
  
But he feels light on his feet, his fingers tingling and his breaths coming in quick and he does hope.   
  
He does.   
  
Graves staggers out of the elevator on the repairs floor, as sleek as the labs’ floor but each repair bay is more expansive and filled with machinery for repairs rather than for creation and experimentation. Only one bay’s lights are on, at the end of the first hall, and Graves walks to it, waiting for the doors to slide open before stepping inside.   
  
Fontaine  _ is _ here, sitting on top of a sturdy table and talking with their best repair technician, Johansson. Johansson is standing over an android lying on his stomach and working on the base of his spine. The android is unmoving.   
  
They stop talking when Graves approaches and he doesn’t want to believe that the dark hair and pale skin he sees belongs to Credence. Doesn’t want to believe that miracles might happen now and then, but he gets closer and sees Johansson is spraying the last layer of synthetic skin over a port that’s been completely repaired.   
  
A spine and mainframe that’s been completely repaired.   
  
“Aren’t jokes supposed to have a punchline, Mister Fontaine?” Credence’s kind but annoyed voice asks and he moves then, from lying prone on the table to tucking his arms under his chest so he can look up at Fontaine.   
  
Graves wishes he had something to lean against. Fontaine only winks at Credence until he looks around and sees Graves.   
  
Credence is alive, alive and well, whole and beautiful, and his eyes brighten when he sees Graves. He smiles, wide and genuine, and laughs after, like he might understand a little of what Graves is going through in attempting to stay on his feet.   
  
“Credence,” Graves says and walks to him. Credence sits up on the table and not a moment too soon because Johansson gives Graves a thumbs up and he knows Credence is, miraculously, good as new. He doesn’t know how, doesn’t know how Jauncey and Barrows managed to do it, but Credence is here and it’s so very easy to embrace him. “Fuck,” Graves says, tears in his eyes as he feels Credence’s warmth under his hands, against his cheek. “Credence, I’m so sorry.”   
  
“You couldn’t have known, Percy,” Credence says, his fingers tight against Graves’ back and his head on Graves’ shoulder. “It’s okay.”   
  
“No, it isn’t,” Graves says and he’s glad to hear Fontaine and Johansson are leaving because his voice is breaking and his tears are hot. “I told you it’d be alright and it wasn’t. I failed you, Credence, and I lost you.”   
  
“You didn’t lose me,” Credence says softly and pulls back. He takes Graves’ cheeks in his hands and brushes away his tears. “I’m right here, Percy. And it’s alright. It’ll be alright now.”   
  
Graves looks over Credence’s face, unmarred and lovely, his eyes alive and bright, no heaviness carried in them this morning. He brushes Credence’s hair away from his forehead and closes his eyes when Credence wipes more tears away.   
  
“I’d love to kiss you right now,” Graves says and looks at Credence, cupping his cheek.   
  
Credence smiles. “I’ve never been kissed before,” he says. “I hoped you might when no one else was watching finally.”   
  
“Bad idea then,” Graves agrees hoarsely. “Sounds like a pretty fucking good one right now.”   
  
“Should I close my eyes?” Credence asks and he’s been spending far too much time with Graves and Fontaine, the mischief in his eyes only growing more the longer he does.   
  
“You should be quiet and let me kiss you,” Graves says and smiles when Credence only grins all the brighter.   
  
He kisses Credence then and holds him close as he does, to feel his warmth and the smooth skin of his back. Credence kisses back, meeting Graves’ gentleness and his fierceness both, something he’s clearly watched done before because he’s damn good at it. Always so curious about everything and anything.   
  
When they break apart, Graves presses his forehead against Credence’s, and takes comfort in Credence’s arms, tight around him.   
  
“Can we go home?” Credence whispers.   
  
“Yeah,” Graves sighs. “Yeah, love, we can. Soon.” He pulls back and runs his thumb across Credence’s cheek. Credence’s eyes fall to his chest and Graves glances down at the navy blue handkerchief in his breast pocket and smiles. “Keep it, if you’d like.”   
  
Credence smiles and takes the handkerchief, running his thumb along the smooth material that he’s managed to keep in perfect condition. He looks at Graves, his eyes soft and his smile wide.   
  
“Thank you, Percy,” he says. “I don’t have anywhere to put it right now.”   
  
Graves laughs and it’s amazing how good it feels to laugh with Credence again, and he wraps his arms around him and kisses his temple. “We’ll get you some clothes,” he says. “Then we’re out of here.”   
  
“Out of here,” Credence says and coaxes Graves down for another kiss.   
  
Graves already knew it would be difficult to not give Credence whatever the hell he wanted because he knew he owed him it. But he finds himself eager to give Credence whatever the hell he wants because it’ll make him happy and he might just be rewarded with that smile he’s fallen for.   
  
The smile he’s lucky he gets to see and the smile he’ll never take for granted again.   
  
The smile he’ll be grateful to see every single day if Credence will have him.   
  
——   
  
Getting out of here takes longer than Graves would like for it to. But GAMAS needs his time and he gets on the same page with Fontaine, Jauncey and Barrows (all of whom he manages to thank and all of whom ignore the tears in his eyes when he does) and PR tells him what he needs to get done before noon.   
  
Graves already knew he was going to have to do it but when they suggest his office, he tells them that’s not happening while he looks the way he does. He refuses to let them follow him to his home, not with Credence there because Credence needs some peace and quiet.   
  
He’s at Graves’ side, dressed in warm clothes, and the police presence that’s still in GAMAS spoke with him for a short while. A short while at Graves’ insistence and he would have had words with them if they treated Credence as anything other than a victim of EWD’s and a victim of simply being at the wrong place at the wrong time.   
  
They get to go home after that.   
  
The drive is quiet, Credence’s hand held in his, watching the sunrise and finally breathing easier.   
  
When they walk inside the house twenty or so minutes later, Graves watches Credence look around with a soft smile, like he’s glad he gets to be here again. Graves knows he’s extremely fucking glad Credence is here and plans on doing his best to see that Credence wants to stay, wants to be with him and that he earns those things.   
  
Kissing him is easy, far too easy, and Graves needs to get work done but the idea of doing any more work when Credence is home is close to unbearable.   
  
But it’s still a trillion-dollar company in immediate crisis so he takes a shower and dresses well and locks himself in his office with a promise to be done soon.   
  
Writing statements comes easy to Graves, he’s been doing it for a long time and likes his own words far better than his PR teams’, and they always grudgingly approve of whatever he’s prepared. He gets on the line with a few of them and reads it and once he’s refused a few corrections, he records the statement for his buyers, for his androids, and the sake of honesty and transparency.   
  
GAMAS’ logo is added in by his team to display behind him as he speaks and Graves watches it once before telling them to broadcast it and hanging up on all of them.   
  
He still only has notifications turned on from his closest at GAMAS and that’s how it’s going to remain for a few days because he doesn’t need the chaos from every department. Finance will have to wait to meet with him and production will continue at a slow rate, but sales are halted until patches have gone out to all affected androids and their information is sent back to GAMAS to ensure proper coding and programs.   
  
Those that are returned will be kept in shutdown mode for a time, a grace period if their owners were to change their minds, and though they’ll no longer fear being reset, a necessity, Graves will have them asked what they would prefer as far as continued operations go.   
  
Once he’s comfortable enough to leave business behind for a few hours, he helps Credence record his own message, a far happier and hopeful tone to this one, and gets it sent to CPS and his sisters as quickly as possible.   
  
It’s not so surprising when they ask to speak to him shortly after and Graves lets Credence have his holopad and watches him sit at the kitchen table. His genuine joy when he sees his sisters and his smile are infectious and Graves watches from the sofa as he speaks to them.   
  
Modesty is cheerful and very much eight years old and she makes Credence laugh and tells him she’s never seen him so happy. Chastity is quieter, fifteen years old, but she’s relieved to see Credence and thanks him for helping them. They’re with a foster family at the moment and Graves isn’t sure of what role Credence can take as far as guardianship goes. He’s still a Barebone, still considered their brother by the law and GAMAS’ standards because Mary Lou hadn’t had the time to change it and neither had GAMAS, too preoccupied trying to figure out the mystery of Credence Barebone.   
  
Graves expects Credence to ask him, whether it’s today or sometime soon, if his sisters can come here and live with them and Graves will only enjoy being able to give him what he wants.   
  
If someone had told him two weeks ago that he’d be falling for an android and prepared to take his sisters, children, into his home, Graves might have scoffed or laughed at the idea.   
  
Two weeks isn’t a long time but it’s long enough to turn life upside down and change values, change wants and desires, and Graves watches Credence tell his sisters he loves them before ending the call and knows it to be true for both of them.   
  
Credence walks to the sofa and gives Graves the wrist band and once he’s put it on, he finds Credence in his lap, one knee on either side of him, and is being kissed soundly.   
  
He had the thought to learn one day and so he did and Graves suspects he learned far more throughout two and a half months than he originally expected.   
  
“Percy,” Credence says softly when he pulls away, one hand in Graves’ hair and the other on the back of his neck. “Will you go back to GAMAS in the morning?”   
  
“Unfortunately,” Graves says as slides his hands under Credence’s shirt and feels the smooth skin of his lower back. It’s going to haunt him, what happened last night, but Credence is in his arms now and it’s not worth thinking about. “I’m probably going to have to work at the office for a week or two. Make sure it doesn’t all burn to the ground.”   
  
Credence smiles. “I don’t think it will,” he says. “Just some of the confidence customers have in it.”   
  
Graves laughs and shakes his head. “Thanks for that reminder,” he says and squeezes Credence’s hips. “Stay here while I’m gone. I’ll be able to talk to you often enough throughout the day. But you don’t need to be in the middle of it.”   
  
Credence nods, brushing his fingers through Graves’ hair. “Alright,” he says. “It feels more like home here than the church ever did. I’d like to watch you come home every day.”   
  
“To you,” Graves says and smiles when Credence nods. “I will, love. I’m going to try to make this home for you for as long as you want it.”   
  
“I’ll always want it,” Credence says. “I’ll always want you too.” He bites his lip and looks at Graves’ shoulder. “I once said this house was big—”   
  
“Big enough for five families, yes, I remember,” Graves chuckles. “I’m willing to fit two more people into it anyway.”   
  
Credence looks at him, his eyes wide and surprised. He grins then, absolutely dazzling, and kisses Graves again, deep and passionate and intoxicatingly good. He has no doubts about what he’s doing, no nervousness, only confidence and he doesn’t even have certain programs uploaded into his systems, but that hasn’t stopped Credence in any other way yet.   
  
Well, one way, Graves supposes, which makes itself apparent between them both later on and Graves isn’t surprised when Credence asks for those programs. It makes  _ him _ nervous and also makes him think about the clinical way in which he oversaw making these things possible, which is not at all what he wants to think about when sharing that sort of intimacy with Credence.   
  
It turns out Credence is very good at distracting him from those thoughts.   
  
Graves never plans on changing anything about Credence, not unless he asks, but Credence doesn’t over the next couple of weeks. He doesn’t ask to have the code EWD remotely wrote in him removed because, while he can question why androids are lesser, he doesn’t anymore. He’s been given enough free will to have his own thoughts about the matters EWD was obsessed with and he’s not around to influence Credence anymore.   
  
It would be dangerous to let all androids question if they’re lesser, if they should be the ones in control, but Credence isn’t dangerous. He’s unique, one of a kind as of the morning the patch went out, and Graves doesn’t want to see him altered, even if that might make him selfish.   
  
But he fell for who Credence is at the heart of him like so many others have for their androids, and maybe that only makes him human.   
  
GAMAS will be the story of the week for the next few weeks, his PR team predicts, but they’re handling everything well enough and Graves can see the changes happening in buyers’ minds, shifting from their initial knee jerk response to praising GAMAS’ transparency.   
  
Surveys say they’re likely to buy again, Fontaine tells him one day with a wry smile, and Graves knew it was going to go this way, but he’s still thankful for it. He’s still thankful he’s able to give to people, completing families or aiding in their daily lives, and he’ll lead his company as he always does, through strides and innovations and emergencies too.   
  
Sera does make him promise to tell her about the next android rebellion when it first begins, rather than ends.   
  
Graves eventually gets the courage to ask Jauncey and Barrows how they managed to repair the damage done to Credence and they say they’ve had theories for such delicate repairs but had never had a chance to try them out. They recorded it as well and it makes Graves’ stomach churn but Credence is at his side when they watch the way Jauncey and Barrows were able to give him life again.  _ For the boss, _ they’d said before they began, and by the time the recording is over, Graves has messaged Jauncey to refine and implement the work into GAMAS’ daily operations.   
  
Thanked her again too.   
  
CPS is receptive to the idea of Modesty and Chastity being placed with Credence, but considering they’ll live with Graves, they require a lot of signed documents and daily updates on how GAMAS is functioning, which Graves knows to mean how  _ he’s _ functioning, and it isn’t until a few more weeks have passed and everyone has room to breathe that supervised visitations are allowed to happen.   
  
Credence is immensely happy to see his sisters and they are doing far better than they were just a short while ago, healthier and more lively. They’re just as thrilled to see Credence and though they’re nervous with Graves, it’s understandable and he spends more time discussing their transition with their care worker on the first few visits.   
  
When she tells him the house seems suitable enough, he thanks her dryly, and by the first of December, Graves has two new members in his family.   
  
The girls have gotten used to the house, to Graves and to Credence, who is _ slightly different, but mostly the same, _ according to Modesty, and though it might take them a few weeks to call it home, Graves is more than glad to have them there and not just for Credence’s happiness.   
  
“Percy,” Credence says softly that night when they’re lying in bed, his head on Graves’ shoulder and his arm across his ribs.   
  
“Hmm?” Graves hums, looking up at the ceiling and the glow of moonlight across it. Owls hoot outside and he runs his fingers through Credence’s hair.   
  
“Miss Hornwall calls me Mister Barebone,” Credence says. “Every time I see her.”   
  
“She does,” Graves agrees.   
  
Miss Hornwall is Modesty and Chastity’s care worker and a very formal woman, though Graves is fond of her these days.   
  
“I don’t want to be a Barebone anymore,” Credence says. “Not in name, I mean.”   
  
Graves raises his eyebrows. “That wouldn’t be too hard to change. Might have to ask the boss first though,” he says and chuckles when Credence looks at him with a grin.   
  
“I don’t think I want to be a Barebone anymore either. It’s a mean name,” Modesty whispers, not much of a whisper at all.   
  
“...preferably not,” Chastity agrees, shier.   
  
Graves sighs and looks at Modesty to his right, attached to his arm and one of three reasons he’s still awake past midnight. “Well,” he says, “you two might take a little longer. Officially anyway. Who would you rather be? Babbage is a good name, very impressive.”   
  
“Who?” Modesty asks in confusion.   
  
“Percy thinks his jokes are very good,” Credence says and smiles when Graves squeezes the nape of his neck. “I think you know the answer to that, Director Graves.”   
  
“I think I do,” Graves says and looks up at the ceiling with a smile. “It’s a prestigious name, you know. Carries a lot of weight. Should get you into all the best black tie events.”   
  
“Wouldn’t we be your guests anyway?” Chastity asks and sounds hesitantly amused, something Graves already feels a spark of pride for.   
  
“His family,” Credence says and smiles when Graves looks at him.   
  
Graves leans in and kisses Credence, briefly, and still gets a disgusted noise from Modesty for it and a giggle from Chastity to follow.   
  
“You are more than welcome to go back to your own rooms,” Graves says and sighs when Modesty clings harder to his arm. He looks at Credence, who is gazing at him with affection and that smile that Graves keeps falling for every day. “This has to be another one of my fatal flaws.”   
  
“Being a good man,” Credence says and smiles more. “I don’t think so. It’s the foundation for all of the reasons I love you after all.”   
  
Graves’ heart thumps a little harder at that and he smiles and presses his forehead against Credence’s. “I suppose that isn’t so bad then, is it?” he says. “Thank you, love. Let’s try to get a little sleep.”   
  
Getting sleep on their first night together as a family does seem to pose some difficulties but not for anything other than being glad to be a family, to share a safe home.   
  
A novel thing for Graves, to have a family that he’s proud of beyond Eliza when it’s only been them for so long. But he is genuinely, wholly and completely happy to have this family, as new as it is, and he’ll continue to consider himself lucky every day for all of them.   
  
Credence at his side, uniquely his own person, learning and growing and healing every day, and Credence’s sisters doing the very same.    
  
They all have a certain zest for life, something Graves once took for granted, but he thinks he’s learning and growing and healing right alongside them.   
  
And that’s perfectly alright with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started writing this in early October and picked it up again about a week ago. My health issues have gotten dramatically worse in the last ten or so days but I managed to finish this lol really hoping some changes in treatment help me soon because things have been awful and I'd like to catch a break!!
> 
> Anyway, please forgive any mistakes, I'll find them when I'm feeling better! This was fun and different and I hope you enjoyed it at least a bit. :)
> 
> Thanks as always to Erin and Mom for your support and reading my fics and dealing with my meltdowns about them. <3
> 
> [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/vtforpedro)
> 
> (p.s. having him fail almost immediately was extremely cathartic for me to write lmao)


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